Etch Static IP Address
 

I'm running Etch on an AMD64 and tried to change the system from dynamic IP to a static IP address in preparation for trying to install VMWare. It seemed very straightforward, just make the change and put in the desired address. I even re-booted but then I lost connectivity.

Is there something else somewhere other than under Administration-Network that I have to change?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

How can we help you when we don't know what you've done?

did you use the network manager tool in gnome or just edit /etc/network/interfaces?

Just edit your /etc/network/interfaces file. Here is a copy of mine:

I have two devices, eth0 (disabled by default) and wlan0 (enabled by default). You have to make sure you are inputing the correct ip, netmask, and gateway in order to get a connection. Your router/network may use a different subnet than I do, but I think my numbers will work for most people. Another majority of routers/networks use the *.0.1 subnet instead of *.1.1 - some are totally custom.

Thanks to everyone for the responses. I was using the Gnome applet under Desktop -> Admin -> Networking and just changing the pulldown option from DHCP to static IP address and filling in the information.

I kind of have the feeling that this doesn't accomplish everything necessary and reminds me of the first few Fedora cores with trying to change the machine name. You used the Gnome applet and the change was reflected at the bottom of the desktop. The only problem was that that was all the app did. It didn't modify things like (I think it was) the lmhosts file or some other config files.

Anyway, I'll edit that file. Thanks again for the help.

You probably need to supply the nameserver address. Can you ping a website such as google using the IP address?

Also, you have two interfaces active on the same subnet.

When you use dhcp, then the dhcp process will configure the gateway. Once you switch to static ip, you usually have to configure the gateway yourself. Look at the applet again and see if there is a place to put it in. And, as jschiwal points out, you may have to put the DNS server IPs in, as well.

Yes, but I dont use both at the same time. eth0 only gets used whem wlan0 craps out. eth0 gets me on the network so I can fix my router so i can reconnect wlan0.

I made the changes recommended to the interfaces file but no joy, although I could see that the Gnome Network app does make the necessary changes so manually changing the file doesn't seem to be necessary. Someone had mentioned "DCHP server" which reminded me that my Linksys router was set to be one. Made the appropriate changes there but still no joy.

When I made the change this time on the linux box using the Gnome network app, everything worked...........until I re-booted when I noticed a boot message that it couldn't activate eth).

As a real basic test, I connected the linux box directly to the cable modem to take the router out of the equation. I noticed that anytime I set things up for static IP, the eth0 doesn't get activated.

I went under "Services" but unlike Fedora which lists ALL possible services for possible activation, Etch only seems to list those that got activated on bootup.

When I go back to DCHP on the linux box, everything works fine. The reason I'm going through this is because I read that you have to have a static IP address to set up VMWare.

This has gotten way beyond my limited linux skills. Does anyone have anyother suggestions?

Thanks for your help.

You cannot use a static IP with a direct connect to your modem. A modem will give you your WAN IP, not a LAN IP. This is DHCP only.

I've used VMWare with DHCP before. I dont see why it would have a problem...

When you get your eth0 working with DHCP, give us the output of /sbin/ifconfig - I'll give you some exact numbers for your /etc/network/interfaces file.

Thanks so much for the feedback, it really helps. Especially that VMWare will run with DHCP. That's the ONLY reason I've been going through this drill. I saw the bit about needing a static IP address from, I think, a howtoforge.com article.

Let me see now about getting things going again under DHCP.

Thanks again for the help.

I tried accessing the /sbin/ifconfig but it said it was a binary file. But here is my /etc/network/interfaces file:

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

Thanks for the help.

don't try to access it, RUN it..

and here is my interface configuration..

I want to thank everyone for their help. I have succeeded in getting static IPs set up on all of my computers. I think a part of the problem was that initially I was setting the default gateway to the address provided by my ISP when I should have set it to the router's address. Anyway, it's been working fine for a few days now so I think that's it.

Thanks again to everyone.

This is off-topic regarding the network question, but on-topic considering VMware.

The article on howtoforge Linux31 is referring to refers to installing VMware server on one machine, and running the client on a different one. You then need a fixed IP for the machine running VMware server.

Like Billy pointed out, if you run WMware server and client on the same box you don't need that fixed address. You might have to refer to your local machine when administering VMware, but you can do that to localhost or 127.0.0.1.

Linux31, it still pays off to spend some time and try and learn basic command line tools like ping, traceroute, ifconfig, etc. If you master those tools, problems like this would have been solved in about 5 minutes, without those, it can cost you a weekend. It is useful to give your box a fixed IP address if you want to access it from other computers on your LAN, then you know where to find it.

jlinkels