NIC not functioning on old machine in xubuntu
 

I'm having trouble connecting my computer to my router. I think it could be hardware problems with the NIC since it is a fairly old computer, but I don't know what commands can be used to diagnose it more completely.
lshw tells me this for the Network card

*-network DISABLED
description: Ethernet interface
product: SMC2-1211TX
vendor: Accton Technology Corporation
physical id: 9
bus info: pci@01:09.0
logical name: eth0
version: 10
serial: 00:10:b5:8a:99:c7
size: 100MB/s
capacity: 100MB/s
width: 32 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd autonegociation
configuration: autonegociation=on broadcast=yes driver=8139too driverversion=0.9.27 duplex=full link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=100MB/s
resources: ioport:2800-28ff iomemory:f4100400-f41004ff irq:9

I assume it was disabled because it's not working properly but I don't know whether it could be that or misconfiguration somewhere. It's just two machines connected to a router, this one and a laptop. This machine is running xubuntu and the laptop is running ubuntu and the laptop connected just fine. The laptop is also using NetworkManager.

What can I do to further diagnose whether it be hardware or misconfiguration?

Let me see if I can help you out. I run Xubuntu on an old laptop. The command lshw I had never seen before. It works on my Xubuntu system, but not on Mandriva. I guess the Ubuntu people built a script to show installed hardware. I feel a little unfamiliar with the command.

It appears the system sees the card, and a driver ( 8139too ) is loaded. Could you confirm that by running the command 'lsmod | grep 8139too' ( without the quotes. ) The command lsmod lists installed modules. If hardware detection worked, and found the card, then it should be loaded. If it is not you can use the command modprobe to load the driver.

From the desktop, and the XFCE menu, click System --> Networking. This should bring up a window called Network Admin. On the Connections tab you should see eth0 listed. Click it, and then Properties. This should show you how it is configured. You can set IP address, DHCP, Gateway and Enable interface here.

The command /sbin/ifconfig will produce some output about your ethernet hardware. It will tell you if it is up, and what IP address it has etc, or if it is not up. You can use ifconfig to enable the interface. The command 'ifconfig eth0 up' ( as root, no quotes ) will attempt to activate the interface.

Post back the output of the above, and we'll go from there.

thanks so much, onto file sharing
 

thanks. It appears to be working. When I followed your instructions, nothing seemed wrong oddly enough. lsmod showed that the module was installed. I did modprobe nonetheless. I went into System->Networking, and it appeared to already be configured to DHCP, but I checked the box which I thought I couldn't check before. This time it worked, and I was able to access the router. I think I may have just never checked that box I guess:newbie:. Now all I have to do is figure out to setup Samba to share the home folder between them.

I'm glad you had success. If you want to share files between two Linux machines, NFS is much easier to set up than Samba. Samba is for sharing files with winddoze machines. Have a look in the Tutorial - Networking section on this board for a how-to for NFS. BTW, NFS stands for Network File System. The directories you share can be mounted into the other systems file system, so you can execute files, edit, play them, what ever you want.

Thanks. I managed to get Samba setup and NFS setup as well. They both seemed pretty straightforward once I followed ubuntu's wiki instructions. I haven't set the nfs to mount on startup thoughI have some questions though

Which one is better/faster/more versatile for just linux to linux? Since neither is really a server that's always on, the situation arises where one can't access the other easily because the other was turned on after the first. does nfs handle that better?

As I understand it, I had to add each computer in the other's /etc/hosts file since I don't have a DNS server. Can I setup one? I probably don't need to since it's just two computers, but would it be difficult?

How would I go about securing it? I figure it's probably not a good idea to have the share on the laptop mount on startup but will having a firewall like firestarter make it alright? Right now it's set to just allow the host that's the other machine access the samba share. I doubt that this is enough, but letting it mount on startup seems easier.

When I choose the Places -> Connect to Server... option that seems to be adequate as well. How exactly does that option work though? It doesn't seem to access it like a regular folder. Movies are only playable in Totem and the preview thumbnails don't show up. Is that using Gnome VFS? How does that work?

In my opinion, NFS is easier to manage. If you have added the NFS shares to /etc/fstab, and you boot ( or re-boot ) the systems in an order such that the shares are not mounted, just issue a mount command for the share. That should mount the share.

Yes, you can set one up, linux can be a DNS server. How difficult it is I can not comment on. I have never set one up. I have six machines, I set up static IP addresses on the my desktops, so my hosts file doesn't need to change. For the laptops, I set up the DHCP server in my router to always give the laptops the same IP address, even though it is DHCP for those machines. If you get different IP addresses it can cause problems.

I'm not sure I can give you a good answer here. NFS you can restrict who can connect, and what access they have, read only or read write. A firewall will stop unwanted snooping, but you have to leave ports open so the service you want connected can connect. The security measures you take depend a lot on who has physical access to the lan, and what type of external connectivity you have.

Can't help you here.

Thanks for your help. I appreciate it.

One: Firestarter will be strong enough for YOUR setup IF Two: YOU change your LAN setup to an address that is only known by YOU. Firestarter is customizable in two schemes. One is YOUR Local Network and the other is YOUR External Network. Firestarter has advantages with being able to set the parameters for these two Networks differently. This increases the options for YOUR setup and creates more stability with increased specivity.