eth0 and ath0? or eth0 and ath1?

tfrei · 01-07-2009, 07:03 AM

After reading Alien Bob's excellent howto on network configuration, http://alien.slackbook.org/dokuwiki/...ckware:network , I'm starting to understand things a little bit better with my wireless and ethernet setup on my laptop.

If I use my laptop in both wireless and ethernet modes, should I define my wireless card with a different index number than my ethernet setup, thus "eth0" and then "ath1"?

I could test this out, but I'm having some difficulty getting wireless to work right now. Thanks for your help.

eco · 01-07-2009, 07:23 AM

No, ath0 will work fine.

Didier Spaier · 01-07-2009, 07:36 AM

First type as root in a terminal:

Code:

iwconfig

to see what is the name given by the kernel or UDEV to your wireless card's interface.

Then use that name in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf.

As stated by Eric you can use any index number, as long as it is not already in use for another card's interface name and it is less than 7.

e.g. if you have two ethernet cards whose interface names are eth1 and eth2 and your wireless card's name as shown in iwconfig's output is tfrei (highly improbable but if you edit /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules accordingly) you could write in rc.inet1.conf:

Code:

ifname[3]="tfrei"

Don't forget to use the same index for all settings for the same card in the rc.inet1.conf

By default:

Code:

ifname[0]="eth0"
ifname[1]="eth1"
ifname[2]="eth2"
ifname[3]="eth3"

but you can change that as needed.

tfrei · 01-07-2009, 08:28 AM

Yes, thank you. I see now that the index number is defined in inet1.conf; the name of the card is something assigned by the computer.

A follow up but related question: I just activated my wireless by installing the driver (madwifi driver; ath5k doesn't seem to work well in my 12.2 slackware asus eee pc laptop). Now, my ethernet connection doesn't work. It did before. The wireless (ath0) isn't working either, but I think that is because it needs to be configured.

How do I keep the wireless connection from interfering with the ethernet connection? If I have ethernet available, I will almost always use that as a connection ( at home for example, since my wireless at home is spotty).

Didier Spaier · 01-07-2009, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tfrei

How do I keep the wireless connection from interfering with the ethernet connection?.

AFAIK there shouldn't be any interference.

Please provide the output of "iwconfig" and "ifconfig -a".

As a reminder, if a DHCP server is listening on your network a "dhcpcd <interface_name>" command should suffice to get a connection through your ethernet card.

Do you usually use dhcp or a static link to get an Internet address ?

tfrei · 01-08-2009, 08:41 PM

Didier, thanks for the reply. I'm unexpectedly away from my computer, but I did get things to work after I configured my wireless (correctly) on rc.inet1. Right now, my wireless works perfectly.

I suspect that my computer first configures my eth0, then configures ath0, over-riding the successful eth0 connection. If ath0 is unsuccessful, it still overides the initial eth0 connection. The result is no internet.

But I need to test this theory out. Thanks for your help before.