Ok, so sadly I have a tendancy to do something... and then forget how I did it. I have an old Pentium II running Redhat 6.0. I recompiled the kernel to trim it down a bit, and had to reinstall the software for my DFE-530TX+ ethernet card. I can do an insmod rtl8139.o and add the module, and then ifconfig... to add my ethernet interface. However, this is going to be my print/web/file server, and will not be hooked up to a monitor or keyboard, so I want the ethernet module and interface to load at boot time. What can I change to do this in Redhat 6.0?

Please test with lsmod whether you modules loaded or not..and, probably you have to edit the file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 like below:

(replace with your network numbers)

DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=static
BROADCAST=x.x.x.x
IPADDR=x.x.x.x
NETMASK=x.x.x.x
NETWORK=x.x.x.x
ONBOOT=yes

and the file /etc/sysconfig/network (replace with your network numbers and hostname)

NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=name.name.name
GATEWAY=x.x.x.x

( I did all of them...and automatically network eth0 with its module wakes up during boot time)

good luck. :d

OK, so I've managed to get it so I can load the ethernet interface. And I run lsmod and I do have the module - AFTER I type in insmod. However, it doesn't stick around at boot time. I remember at one time I inserted a line into some file that loaded my module automatically. Any ideas of what that file might have been? Not like it's that big of a deal, this server is too loud to run all the time, so I'm going to switch in a week, but still, the stigma of forgetting something so simple... :-)