DHCP and NIC card problems in Mandrake 10
 

Alright, so I've been reading tons of posts on this board and many other boards, not to mention numerous sites with information, but I continue to have a problem with my internet connection. I'd be gratefull if anyone could offer some help. Here's the situation:

I have a cable modem connected to a Linksys router and two machines hooked up, a win98 and winxp/fedora c1. Both machines and internet connections work fine. I just inherited an older machine which I installed Mandrake 10 on. The installation went fine, it seemed to recognize all my hardware fine, except I have no internet connection. (No, I didn't forget to connect it to the router.) So, Mandrake recognized my ethernet card as an ASIX AX88140, I ran through the "Network & Internet Configuration" setting it up as dhcp-client.

Now I'm not sure what I'm missing... When I type ifup eth0, this is the response I get:

# ifup eth0
Determining IP information for eth0... done.
/sbin/ifup: line433: 2672 Hangup /etc/init.d/tmdns reload >/dev/null 2>&1
#

This is the result of ifconfig:

#ifconfig
eth0 Link encap: Ethernet HWaddr 00:80:AD:B8:54:59
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU: 1500 Metric: 1
RX Packets:0 errors:4 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX Packets:34 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0b) TX bytes:8928 (8.7 Kb)
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x6500

eth0:9 Link encap: Ethernet HWaddr 00:80:AD:B8:54:59
inet addr: 127.255.255.255 Bcast: 127.255.255.255 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU: 1500 Metric: 1
Interrupt:11 Base address:0x6500

lo Link encap: Local Loopback
inet addr: 127.0.0.1 Mask: 255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX Packets:56 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX Packets:56 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:3968 (3.8 Kb) TX bytes:3968 (3.8 Kb)
#


This is /etc/sysconfig/network:

HOSTNAME=drake
NETWORKING=yes


This is /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:

DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
MII_NOT_SUPPORTED=no
DHCP_HOSTNAME=drake
NEEDHOSTNAME=yes


I've tried a number of different edits but I can't seem to get this machine to connect to the network. I managed to get it connected one night, however after a reboot, it wouldn't connect again. I have no idea what I had changed, but I can't get it back. Thanks for any help you can give.

Is the network address 192.168.0.0? If you have the same Linksys router/switch that I do, it has a web interface. Point a browser to 192.168.0.1. If you haven't changed it, the name is blank and the password is either admin or linksys. Click on the dhcp tab and the dhcp clients button. You will get a table of the clients on the router. Does 'drake' show up?

A quick way to try to fix the networking is to go to the 'manage connections' wizard, delete the networking connection, and add it as a new connection. Make sure it is selected as the internet connection in that wizard also.

Also, make sure that the link light is lit at both ends. This doesn't guarantee that the hardware is OK, but the absence of it would indicate a possible hardware/cabling problem.

What does lspci print out about the nic card. Sometimes even the same model of nic cards use different controller chips.

Try using the 'service network restart' command.

network interface card card problems? :D

Actually, to get to the router web interface, it's 192.168.1.1 for me. Anyway, "drake" does not show up in the dhcp clients list. My other two computers do, but not drake.

I ran back through the connection manager a few times, changing a few settings here and there. I removed and re-added the connection, but it doesn't to affect the results.

I also see that the router lights register the connection as do the NIC's lights.

Here is what the lspci prints out:

unknown : Intel Corporation|430TX - 82439TX MTXC [BRIDGE_HOST]
unknown : Intel Corporation|82371AB PIIX4 ISA [BRIDGE_ISA]
unknown : Intel Corporation|82371AB PIIX4 IDE [STORAGE_IDE]
usb-uhci : Intel Corporation|82371AB PIIX4 USB [SERIAL_USB]
sonypi : Intel Corporation|82371AB PIIX4 ACPI - Bus Master IDE Controller [BRIDGE_OTHER]
Card: S3 ViRGE (generic): S3 Inc.|ViRGE/DX or /GX [DISPLAY_VGA]
tulip : ASIX|AX88140 [NETWORK_ETHERNET]
unknown : Linux 2.6.3-4mdk uhci_hcd|UHCI Host Controller [Hub]

And as far as the service network restart command, the interfaces shut down but when bringing back up "interface eth0", it fails.

I gave the wrong IP address for the Linksys router. It is 192.168.1.1.

I have a simliar problem with my mandrake 10 install, emcee - i think it must be a bit buggy....

i initially went with the upgrade option over my 9.1 install, and most everything seemed to work correctly, but some links were unreferenced, and there were a few other minor issues, but the network and internet worked just as it had before. One of the things i was worried about was an error during the install with one of my options. Today, i decided to do a full install - recreating the partitions and everything- to resolve those few lagging issues, hoping especially that the one or two install options that had errored were just a result of upgrading rather than doing a full install.

No such luck. This time i had 5 options error during the install.

cvs1.11.11-1mdk.i586
devfsd1.3.25-37mdk.i586
dmidecode-2.3-2mdk.i586
drakconf-10-12mdk.i586
and
dhcp-client-3.0-1.rc13.4mdk.i586

and of course, no internet, no network.

did you encounter any issues like this?

(i did choose more options for the install as opposed to the upgrade, hence the greater number of failures...)

also, when you installed 10, did it ask you for a fourth disc???

I installed Mandrake 10 fresh with no previous Mandrake version installed, so I can't say that I ran into the same problems. The install went surprisingly well, with no noticeable errors or complaints. Everything seemed fine until I tried using the internet or checking the network. So I don't know what the problem is... Maybe it has to do with an obscure and low quality ethernet card? But I did manage to connect for one night... So I'm really not sure what the problem is. And if I remember correctly, the install didn't ask me for the fourth disc either. Maybe the fourth disc contains the source in case you want to recompile the kernel or something. To tell you the truth, I've had no motivation to explore the OS because I can't get internet access.

emcee

me personally - i'm gonna re-install 9.1 - and maybe MAYBE go through the 10.0 upgrade process again. Somethin' fishy with 10 - especially the full install.

Re-reading your initial post, I see that ifconfig listed the eth0 interface twice. You may need to go into the MCC network setup page and delete the eth0 connection so that you can start over. Also go into the firewall setup after that. After setting up the firewall, It will ask which interface to use. Make sure that eth0 is selected and not ppp+.

Rather than a full install, you could do an upgrade. Short of that, if you have the /home directory on its own partition, don't reformat the /home partition. Make sure you know which drive divice (e.g. hda10) is mounted as /home so you can reselect it. When you finish, you may need to run as root the command: because the uid may have changed. I recently had similar problems to yours, but in the end, it was a problem with the linksys router.

oddly, the third time i installed 10.0 (which was the second time it was a full fresh install) everything worked perfectly. I burned different discs, thinking that maybe those i had installed from previously (two different sets, mind you) had corruptions on them. Well, don't know for sure if that's the case, but like i said, it went off without a hitch.

Just FYI - so i take back a little of my venom toward 10 - but there obviously is something wrong with it. It shouldn't be so hit or miss, and i've read about several networking issues with it now.