HELP!! This is driving me up the wall.

I have just installed Mandrake 9.2 and I can't get a response from pinging localhost

1. Both lo and eth0 interfaces are up okay
2. /etc/hosts file correctly reflects localhost ( plus my own host )
3. The route table appears to be correct

I initially installed the system with security setting to Higher. Thinking this might be aproblem I set it to standard but this had no affect.

Interestingly enough if I plug my box into my ADSL/router I can ping the router without any problems

I can also hit localhost over http but I can't ping either 127.0.0.1 or my own host ( 192.168.1.2 )

The ping just times out withh 100% packet loss

I have also checked IPTables and all chains are set to Accept policy with now rules

Any ideas will be greatly apprciated as I am at a loss what to check next

have you tried

#echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/icmp_echo_ignore_all ???

try the command
Then try to ping....

opps sorry ..my bad...that snippet was takes directly off my own settings

yes you should do

echo 0 (sets the rule to false)

superb :-) :-) :-), that seemed to work

What does that command do??

Also,

How come this did not affect me pinging my router??

basically tells ur box not to reply to icmp_echo (aka ping) requests.
echo 1 sets it to "true" (all ping requests are ignored)
echo 0 sets it to "false" (replies to ping requests)