hi all,

i need help in setting up my Prolink H5200 modem to connect online.
i have 2 operating systems on my machine windows xp/slackware 12.
i can connect online if i use windows, but cant with slackware.
i tried running the wizard but all i have is the loopback add 127.0.0.1 when i do ifconfig.

any suggestions?

fyi, i also tried posting this thread under
linux>hardware forum but im not getting any replies ;(
please help me.

thanks,
doods

You will not be able to connect unless your network card is up and running. What is your network card? For example type "lspci" as root in a terminal and identify what card is recognized. EDIT: The output of "lsmod" might be helpful as well.

After that your configuration depends on how the internet connection is done - if your modem does handle the connection by itself (else you will need "pppoe" configured I think).

You should try running :
to see the status of all network interfaces. Without the "-a" ifconfig will only display the status of active interfaces.

I'm not familiar with your modem/router but if it can provide DHCP then it should be pretty easy to setup. Just be sure to select DHCP when running netconfig.

Be aware that netconfig will only setup eth0. If your device is connected to another interface it will not work with netconfig setings. Have a look at Alien Bob's excellent write up here.

As said - you may need pppoe. Settting up pppoe is another topic and I have no experience in this. There does seem to be a lot of information available though.

With my ADSL modem/router, it gets an IP address from my ISP using DHCP. I then connect to the internet by pointing my Linux and Windows setups to the modem/router's local address of 10.1.1.1.
I have my Linux set up to use a static IP address of 10.1.1.5, i.e. in my /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf
In Windows, I ran the network connection wizard using the options to connect to the internet via another computer (i.e. the modem/router).

You may also need to specify a DNS name server if you use a setup like this.
In Linux, this is set in /etc/resolv.conf
where aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd is the IP address of your ISP's nameserver. This information can be supplied by your ISP, or may even be available by accessing your modem/router directly. In my case I can access the modem/router by opening a web browser and entering http://10.1.1.1 to get to a status page.

In Windows, it is set as an option under the Properties tab of the TCP/IP protocol settings in network connections.

I prefer this mode of operation as the modem/router has some useful features such as firewalling, URL blocking and port forwarding that I can utilise.

Yeah - mine does too. However, on my setup at least, this is it's public IP address and it hands out local IP's via it's own DHCP server along with appropriate DNS and Default Gateway settings. This saves setting them all up in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf and /etc/resolv.conf. It also allows static IP setting by MAC address which ensures my machines always have the same IP address issued.

Admittedly it's no big deal setting up static IP addressing locally but if more than one machine is on the network static addressing via DHCP along with DNS and gateway assignment means there is one central point to manage all IP resources. It also means that without local DNS functionality, (which my router doesn't have), a single copy of /etc/hosts may be copied between all machines allowing local host name resolution. This can be achieved by running dnsmasq but it's yet another layer of complexity that I don't currently need.

Effectively the router's DHCP server issues it's own IP as the default gateway and DNS server so I don't have to worry about setting these on any machines.

Perhaps it's just a personal choice but I've always found DHCP to be a very elegant solution to the problem of IP address management.
Perhaps I've misunderstood you here but my router still provides this functionality to DHCP assigned machines. Obviously I need to setup static DHCP assignments to forward, (for example), all HTTP accesses to a particular machine and SHH requests to another but this all works fine.

All this, however, is probably purely academic as differing equipment will offer differing functionality.

@bgeddy
You offer sound advice on the advantages of DHCP.

Do you run any virtual machines with your setup? I find that static addressing is easy to manage for this.

When I said I prefer this mode of operation, I was referring to the use of the router functionality as compared to the use of PPPoE where the router/modem is used simply as a dumb modem.

Yes - VM's are a wonderful thing ! I run VMware with which I use "Bridged Networking" and VirtualBox with which I use "Host Interface" networking accessing TAP devices setup in a bridge. I mainly use VirtualBox at the moment. I use DHCP in all my VM's running on these platforms as I find it easier to manage. I set static addresses by MAC in my router's DHCP settings for each VM so I can be sure the same IP's are leased to each VM. VM's are a great way to experiment with networking concepts as it's easy to add and remove network interfaces when required. This along with immutable disk drives and many other niceties makes them an essential testbed tool.

@bgeddy
Thanks for the reply. The ability to assign static addresses by MAC is a feature that I will expect when I replace this particular modem/router.