I'm sure this is an easy question, but how do I get the Network Service to start at boot?

I just had DSL hooked up. It was done by using a Speedstream (Siemens) 4200 modem/router. The original problem was that it was USB device.
What's up with that?
It works fine in XP (I have dual boot XP and Redhat 9) however I noticed that when I was in RH9, I still had internet connectivity on my other networked XP box. So I thought maybe the actual USB device had nothing to do with linux as long as I had a NIC in and it was getting an IP.
I was right.

Problem is, when I installed RH9 I wasn't networked so it appears that by default, the Network service isn't started by default.

I was able to run redhat-config-network and manually start the network service and I was able to ping Yahoo.
Problem is that then when I tried to open Opera I get this:

"** (redhat-config-network-gui:2063): WARNING **: `GtkTextSearchFlags' is not an enum type

(redhat-config-network-gui:2063): Gtk-WARNING **: Unable to locate theme engine in module_path: "bluecurve","

and no graphical apps will open, But I know this is another issue non-related to starting the Network service at boot.


I was also able to run, redhat-config-service and manually start the network service with the same result. Able to ping, yada yada.

I'm not able to save these changes, when I reboot, the network service will not load at boot.


What do I edit to tell redhat to automatically start the network service at boot? I'm sure it's an easy question, but I've never really done much network stuff with redhat and I don't know where to look.

Thank you.

To start network service at boot issue the following command:

[root@host]#chkconfig --level 345 network on

As you said 'no GUI app works'.. :-? I dont think this problem is due to network service...
Can you please try after cleaning your /tmp dir? I mean rm -rf * at /tmp make sure that you have removed all the hidden files and directory too..(empty directory). Normally there wont be anything important.

Thanks,
Rinish (rinishriju)

Hey Rinish,
Thanks for the reply.
I kind of figured it out yesterday.
It has somehing to do with being logged in as root.

If I boot up, log in as root, and type in,"ifup eth0" I can ping yahoo, but I can't open any gui apps.
I get the above error message.
But after I type, "ifup eth0" and then su to a user account, I can fire up gui apps.

I thinK I'm supposed to do something like, "hosts +" as user before I go back in as root.

Since I was never on a Network until now, I've always logged in as root. I think it would be a good idea to break that habit now.