Knoppix looses internet connection
 

Hi

I have installed Knoppix on my PC which is connected to my ADSL moden through a linksys router. When I start the PC the internet connection is set up nicely using DHCP and runs without problems for a while. After a while the connection disappears. I can't se anything usefull in /var/log/messages and I can't get the connection up and running again without rebooting the PC in which case the connection works again for a while.

I have tried installing Pump DCHP client without any change in behaviour and I have tried swithing the router to use static ip addresses and netcardconfig to change the settings on the PC which makes no difference.

Anyone has an idea what I can do to make it work?

What do route -n & ifconfig list before and after the problem?
How many interfaces are listed in /etc/network/interfaces ?
It is possible to have an unknown interface being activated by dhcp.
Because it doesn't get a lease, it will timeout come up with 169.x.x.x and a gateway of 0.0.0.0 which will throw out the routing table.. (a real far shot however!)

The route -n and ifconfig commands show the same thing before and after the connection disappears. The /etc/network/interfaces shows eth0 and the loopback interface which should be ok too.

If I try to manually shut the networking down and start it up again using ifdown eth0; ifup eth0, I can see that it runs pump -i eth0 which stalls doing something I can't see.

Any more ideas? The reason it took me so long to answer the question was that I tried downloading and installing the latest Knoppix 3.3 but that didn't solve the problem either.

I have only used adsl boxes with static ip numbers, never a modem

Can you set up static addresses on the router rather than dynamic ones?

There is nothing special in my seup. Normally (At least in Denmark) you have a modem connecting to your provider and a router behind the modem. Sometimes the modem is part of the router i which case you only have one box.

I have tried using static IP adresses on my router without any change in behaviour. One thing I haven't tried though is to connect the PC directly to the modem. I think I'll try that.

I have a WinXP installation on the same PC which works fine so it is not a problem with my internet provider.

I'm a newb to Linux but networking I'm half decent at. Is there any kind of lease expiration setting in Linux that would override the router?

I haven't explicitly stated any lease expiration value on the linux box, but for testing purposes set the lease expiration value at 10 minutes on the router.

I don't think it is a DHCP problem though, since I get the same problems when running with static IP adresses.

Could it be a problem with the dmfe net card driver? I'm running version 1.36.4, but I think I heard someone had some troubles with that driver.

Just to add to the information I just tried compiling and installing the tulip net card driver. This didn't change anything.

What kind of NIC do you have? Because I believe I found that the Netgear FA310 uses the dec tulip driver but the Netgear FA311 uses the natsemi driver.

I gave up and bought a cheap 10/100 net card which seems to work out of the box. I made sure it didn't need the dmfe driver before buying it.