I have a dual boot machine running Fedora Core 2 and XP Pro. I connect to the internet via cable modem and I get my IP via DHCP.

The problem is that when I log on to Linux, I can get an IP correctly and browse the internet. But if I switch to XP, it can't get the IP and I'm unable to use the net. (If I boot the machine directly to XP the first time, I get the IP too.)

Then I configure the IP manually and it works until a certain amount of time, after wich, if I switch back to get the IP through DHCP server, it retrieves it correctly and I'm able to use the internet again (all this under XP).

I think the problem is that the server assumes that I already have an address and it refuses to give another one. So I have to use the same that the Linux was using when I logged on to it.

When I had SuSE installed, this didn't happen. I'm assuming that on the process of turning of, SuSE would send a signal to the server, releasing the IP (like 'ipconfig /release' under XP). That way I could get it again when windows logged on.

Is there a way to release the IP every time I turn off Linux? How? Or is this not the problem? If not, anyone has an idea of what it could be?

I had the exact same problem. At first I was running mdk and redhat 8 and 9. All three had this problem. My choice for suse was mainly due to this, as I had to dualboot win2k, at that time.

To be honest, switching to suse was my workaround. Redhat and mdk both bring the eth interface down, while rebooting/powering off, so I don't think releasing IP would help.

If you wanna try something, change the dhcp client you run. Maybe pump would do the job.

Ok, but I'm a newbie in Linux. How do I go about changing the dhcp client to pump in Fedora?

All right, I did some research and actually the problem is exactly what I suspected. I just got off my Fedora installation, but before I did, I issued a "/sbin/dhclient -r" as root to release the IP. Now I'm on windows and my internet is working fine! Now, all I need to know is how to make my linux issue this command everytime it turns off. Can anyone help?