Set up a standard Redhat 7.3 workstation to grap IP address on LAN via DHCP. When bringing up eth0, redhat hangs for several seconds. The resulting (assigned) IP addresss is 192.168.10.255, which is the same as the assigned broadcast address, and TCPIP apps do not function.

The network card is good. I can manually assign a valid IP address, such as 192.168.10.30, and things work fine.

A windows XP box on the network performs flawlessly when receiving it's IP address via DHCP.

any ideas??

I should also mention that the linux workstation itself does not have a DHCP server installed (client only), and it is not implementing any kind of firewall, as these have been issues on previous DHCP threads.

which dhcp client do you use?
post its conf file.

I am using dhcpd as my client. It was setup by the Redhat installer.

Not sure about a config file, but have /etc/dhcpc/dhcpcd-eth0.info:

IPADDR=192.168.10.255
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.10.0
BROADCAST=192.168.10.255
GATEWAY=192.168.10.60
DNS=192.168.10.30
DHCPSID=192.168.10.30
DHCPGIADDR=0.0.0.0
DHCPSIADDR=0.0.0.0
DHCPCHADDR=00:50=DA:C2:4C:04
DHCPSHADDR=00:10:6B:A7:F2:20
DHCPSNAME=
LEASETIME=864000
RENEWALTIME=432000
REBINDTIME=756000
INTERFACE=eth0
CLASSID="Linux 2.4.18-3 i686"
CLIENTID=00:50A:A2:4C:05

also have /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0:
DEVICE=eth0
ONBOOT=yes
BOOTPROTO=dhcp

and ifconfig yields:
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:A0:BA:B2:4C:04
inet addr:192.168.10.255 Bcast:192.168.10.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:2992 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:1 frame:0
TX packets:270 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:8
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:383406 (374.4 Kb) TX bytes:61599 (60.1 Kb)
Interrupt:12 Base address:0xe400

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:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:8 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:560 (560.0 b) TX bytes:560 (560.0 b)

your eth0 configuration file is ok. but your machine is not able to reach the dhcp server. check the cables and if you have dual boot check with windows if it is getting the ip and you check the data port too if your are in a office.

The cable/port is ok: if I plug the cable into an XP box, it grabs and ip address via dhcp just fine.

I'd take a look at the DHCP server. Perhaps someone has misconfigured it to distribute 192.168.10.255 as part of the address pool.

No, the server isn't set up to distribute that ip address, and all of the window boxes (100+) on the network obtain valid ip addresses.

It has become fairly obvious why the total cost of ownership for Linux is so much higher than for Windows... Windows just plain works!

man, query i have this same problem. My box would get the address via DHCP just fine, now it wont....i just stuck with hard coding. My DHCP server (a DSL/Cable router) gives out IPs in the range of 192.168.1.100-192.168.1.103 so i just hard coded my box to 192.168.1.200. Sure this doesnt solve the problem of the dhcp client not doing its job....but it works for me. Actually its better this way because i use my linux box as a server and i dont need its ip to be changing all the time.

Are you sure that the DHCP server is configured properly? I've been using Linux DHCP clients with Windows NT 4.0 DHCP Server, Windows 2000 DHCP Server, and the Linux DCHPd Server and have never encountered this issue.

Regarding Linux's TCO, I've never heard such bull in my life.

It seems a little funny that these two values don't match:

DHCPCHADDR=00:50=DA:C2:4C:04
CLIENTID=00:50A:A2:4C:05

I'm used to seeing those be the same. You can pass in a -I option to dhcpcd to force the client id to be the same as DHCPCHADDR where it is called in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifup and see if that helps.