My Fedora Core 3 server box can resolve DNS queries, but it cannot get any data, so connections always time out. Firefox doesn't load webpages, ">wget www.redhat.com" doesn't retrieve the index.html etc.

This FC3 box acts as Apache server, and connects to the internet via a NetComm NB5Plus4 router (192.168.1.1). It is assigned a static IP (192.168.1.5). My ISP's DNS is set in the router config (hardware level) as well as in FC3 (software level)

/etc/resolv.conf:

nameserver 192.168.1.1
nameserver 203.0.178.191
nameserver 210.80.58.34

I have checked the settings in the Network Configuration utility (system-config-network 1.3.22) they are all correct.

> ip route show
192.168.1.0/24 dev eth0 proto kernel scope link src 192.168.1.5
169.254.0.0/16 dev eth0 scope link
default via 192.168.1.1 dev eth0

My linux guru friend reckons the second line is bogus, but when I take it out, it makes no difference. When I restart "network" service, it puts the 169.254.0.0 back in.

He spent an hour on ICQ today walking me through different approaches, and finally he gave up and said: "Install Ubuntu".

I'd rather not have to install and learn an entire new distro, but if I cannot find a solution to this problem, I might have to.

Are there any other computers on that subnet that can get data through the router? Perhaps the loop-back device is not activated, that happened to me and caused very wierd behavior. Try "/sbin/ifdown lo; /sbin/ifup lo" as root. Attempt to telnet into google.com, and if it connects, type
"
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: google.com
"
and see what happens. If it does not connect, try the direct IP address (64.233.187.99 for reference). "/etc/init.d/network restart" might be worth a try as well. It could also be a firewall issue. Try "system-config-securitylevel" and disable the firewall. This is a wierd problem, and I do not know what else to try. I hope it works out.

Yes, three Windows XP workstations. They have dynamically allocated IP addresses. They all work.

The lo interface has always been up, as shown by service manager.
Doesn't work, it just says "Trying 64.233.187.99..." forever

I have restarted network after every change I made to the config, and I have already tried disabling the firewall. I'm starting to think the TCP stack has been corrupted, or there some really obscure router setting that disables Linux but not Windows.

Is there a way I can reinstall TCP from the installation CDs? I have configured Synaptic already, so I might no longer be able to use the original install media.

Maybe I'm just unlucky when it comes to Linux. All my distros kill themselves in one of two ways: They mysteriously lose internet connectivity, or they corrupt their own file system. Not happy.

Thanks for your reply.

Ubuntu 5.10 doesn't work with the NB5Plus4 either.

I will return the product as soon as they will take it back.

Are there any routers on the market that specifically support Linux? I thought that Linux has a fairly large presence in the server market, for OEMs not to support the platform in the networking area seems a bit off -- though I can explain why. If they need to support Windows, that's basically XP, Mac, that's OSX.

Linux has so many different versions, it is impossible to support them all.