Hi everyone,

I'm trying to get my Mandriva 2007 Linux box online through my Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger workstation. I have a crossover cable connected between the two (and the cable works... I plugged my laptop to my Mac, and the connection worked great). The NIC inside the Linux box is also a known-good, as it was connected to a router a while ago (in my previous residence).

The reason I need my Linux box connected to my Mac is because my Linux box does not have a wireless network card, and the internet is on the other side of this house. This is only going to be a temporary solution for the next month or two, until I get my own place. Then, I'll learn how to use the Linux box as my gateway to the internet.

My Mac serves DHCP requests on its built-in ethernet port. When I connected my Windows XP Pro laptop via the crossover cable, it was able to pick up an IP and communicate with no problems with the Mac, and thus to the internet (the Mac does routing, since I have enabled Internet Sharing). However, when I connect the Mac to the Linux box, the Mac reports that the cable is unplugged.

This problem also exists in Fedora Core 5, which I had previously installed on the Linux box as well. When I go to the Linux box, it reports that eth0 is up, but it does not provide an IP address. Also, a "dhclient" command simply returns the discovers... there are no replies. If I try supplying a static IP (through the GUI), ifconfig still reports no IP address. ifconfig only reports "UP BROADCAST MULTICAST", so it sounds like it notices a problem too... (this is a speculation... I've seen the loopback interface provide "RUNNING", so I'm guessing that means "Connected, no known problems")

Any ideas on how to get this working? Thanks!

I have had a lot of problems in the past using Internet Sharing on OS X where the built-in DHCP server refused to give out leases to some devices. There would be no error logged on the Mac, the device would just say no DHCP server was available.

Perhaps you should try setting up a static IP to see if that gets you any connectivity. Setting the Linux machine's IP to 10.0.2.2 with a default gateway of 10.0.2.1 would work assuming default Internet Sharing settings.

Although that does not explain the "Cable Unplugged" message at all...