DHCP cannot find IP Address
 

I just installed SuSE Linux 8.0 Professional. It would not boot from the CD-ROM, but I finally got it to boot from the floppy, then mounted the CD-ROM. Everything loaded OK, and I configured the network card. No problems here.

I have a cable modem, connected through a USB port. I did not configure the modem, but was able to access the Internet (www.eBay.com) just fine. I shut down the machine, but when I restarted the next day, I got a message that DHCP could not get an IP address. I cannot access the Internet, nor send and receive mail. The network card is still configured, but the modem is not. I get an "unknown host" message if I try to access the net.

Internet access is no problem on Windows on the same machine. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

What do you get with the output of ifconfig ?

Also, make sure you have your DNS entries in /etc/resolv.conf

Many thanks for your reply.

"ifconfig" by itself only gives the "lo" information. 'ifconfig eth0" gives the hardware address for the internet card and some packet information, but no IP address. "ifconfig eth1" give the hardware address for the cable modem, and packet information, but, again, no IP address.

The file /etc/resolv.conf is empty.

I did look at the /var/log/messages file, and saw a line that said, "CDCEther.c Ethernet informaton found at device configuration. This is broken." But, I can get to the Internet on Windows. A Linux conflict wioth IRQ's, or something?

I have found out that if I enter (as root) "dhcpcd eth1", I can get onto the net for some period of time. If I log off as root and logon as my usual userid, the connection is lost.

If I stay on as root, which I know is dangerous, the connection seems to time out, somehow. At any rate, it is lost, but is restored if I enter the "dhcpcd eth1" command in a root window.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. By the way, I did research the problem: that is how I found out how to get on the net at all.