Problem with eth0 and DSL alltogether.
 

Hi guys. Just so you know, I'm pretty new to linux. I've been learning Solaris in school since August, but I just installed Red Hat Linux 9.0 on my home computer Saturday, so please be a little patient with my ignorance :). My problem is that I'm trying to be able to use my SBC Yahoo! DSL on linux, but there's a problem with either eth0, or my NIC card might not be compatible.

I really don't even know where to start when it comes to setting up DSL for linux, but first off, there's this problem:

Now, when I start up linux, when it's going through the boot up process everything goes ok until it get's to:

Bringing up eth0 interface (or something like that) it fails.

However, I'm pretty sure linux knows I have a NIC card, and what brand it is too. That tells me that there's nothing wrong with my netcard, as far as it being there is concerned, and I'm pretty sure it's compatible (it was in the list of available stuff during the installation).

Once I've gotten into linux, and I go to the system tools->network the card is there, but it's inactive. By default, the fields for the setup/config were blank save for the hostname which was localhost.localdomain. I filled in the DNS primary and secondary with the info I got from DNS primary and secondary from the connection dialog box properties while in windows (respectively).
Once I did that, I tried to activate it again and it failed determining the IP address once again.

I've looked into some threads and saw some people were able to fix this problem by editing the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file to:

DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes

and I did that (while making a backup of the original in case this didn't work). However this didn't fix anything, and it still fails to bring up the eth0 interfaces during bootup, and thus, still won't activate. Running /sbin/ifup eth0 produces no output (success right?), but running /sbin/ifconfig eth0 <any parameter> complains about something on eth0 (inactive or some such).

Like I said, I'm new to linux (but love it to death already), and have almost no idea on where to get started fixing this problem. If you need more info than what I've given, I'd be happy to switch to linux, do some digging, log it in a file, and come back and post it all. Thanks!

as root:
%> cat /etc/modules.conf | grep eth0
You should see a line like: alias eth0 8139too
It basically says: Eth0 is suppose to run with this driver (module)
Then do as root switch 8139too to the module you for from modules.conf:
%> cat /var/log/messages | grep 8139too
Do you see any error messages relating to the loading of your module ?

If the last step doesn't return anything ....
Check out /var/log/message and scan for interesting messages.

If still nothing.
try
%> ifup eth0

Alright, I'll try that... while I'm logging off and restarting and blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda... is there anything else you need me to check on?

Nope.

$ cat /etc/modules.conf | grep eth0
alias eth0 e100

$ cat /var/log/messages | grep e100
Oct 26 17:01:03 localhost kernel: e100: eth0: Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection
Oct 27 07:43:53 localhost kernel: e100: eth0: Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection
Oct 27 09:36:04 localhost kernel: e100: eth0: Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection
Oct 27 09:42:28 localhost kernel: e100: eth0: Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection
Oct 27 09:58:20 localhost kernel: e100: eth0: Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection
Oct 27 10:17:15 herrtool@sbcglobal kernel: e100: eth0: Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection
Oct 27 10:34:24 localhost kernel: e100: eth0: Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection
Oct 27 12:28:32 localhost kernel: e100: eth0: Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection

I didn't see anything that looked erroneous so:
$ /sbin/ifup eth0
Determining IP information for eth0... failed.


Here's some more info that might come in handy (I've seen alot of requests for
this stuff when looking through threads from people with similar problems).

If that wasn't enough, I did:
$ /sbin/ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:03:47:EC:47:26
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:8208 (8.0 Kb)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0xdf00 Memory:ff8ff000-ff8ff038

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:5257 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:5257 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:359046 (350.6 Kb) TX bytes:359046 (350.6 Kb)

How did this manage to transfer packets? I thought it couldn't bring up the
interfaces to my NIC?

$ /sbin/ifconfig eth0
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:03:47:EC:47:26
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:8208 (8.0 Kb)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0xdf00 Memory:ff8ff000-ff8ff038

And here's the contents of /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:
$ cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes

There is a backup of this file incase this made things go wrong (which it
didn't, but didn't fix anything either... here's what WAS in it)
$ cat /etc/sysconfig/networking-scripts/ifcfg-eth0.BAK
DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
USERCTL=no
PEERDNS=no
TYPE=Ethernet

Interestingly, the bootup processes this file as well, and it fails too.

Here are some details on my NIC card, and how I set it up (unsuccessfully):
(Under hardware tab)
Description: Intel EtherExpress/100
Type: Ethernet
Device: eth0

(Under DNS tab)
Hostname: localhost.localdomain
Primary DNS: (blank)
Secondary DNS: (blank)
Tertiary DNS: (blank)
DNS Search Path: (blank)
I did try setting these to the values I saw from the Connection Manager while
in windows, however, there were no corresponding values for tertiary DSN or
DNS search path, so I left those blank. This didn't fix anything, so I tried
adding SBC as a host in the hosts tab. Although I'm not sure I put the right
IP address in for them, it still did nothing.

(Under hosts tab)
IP: 127.0.0.1
Name: localhost.localcomain
Aliases: localhost

(Under devices tab)
Profile: (is checked)
Status: Inactive
Device: eth0
Nickname: eth0
Type: Ethernet

That's about it. Anything else?

try:
Bring up the eth0 card
/sbin/ifconfig eth0 up
Then assign dhcp address to eth0
I don't know how to do this step but the man pages should help .

Does it fail ? At what step ?

How do I get the DHCP address? and when I do, is it the -pointopoint or the netmask address?

like:
/sbin/ifconfig eth0 <-pointopoint>(DHCP) or:
/sbin/ifconfig eth0 (DHCP)

Sorry, but like I said, I'm kinda new to this stuff. My class hasn't gone over anything like this yet. And thanks for caring :)

Oh, by the way, SBC Yahoo! DSL uses PPPoE. Appearantly this makes a huge difference. I'm not sure if RH 9.0 has any problems, but I know RH 7.1 has no support for it.