Hello,

Sorry if this problem has already been answered. I've found many posts that describe the same problem, but I was unable to get any help from them.

Running Fedora...

After bootup, eth0 is inactive. I go into redhat-config-network and activate eth0 and everything works fine. The configurations in redhat-config-network say eth0 should be activated during boot, but it doesn't. It's a real pain to have to manually activate it. Does anyone know how to make eth0 activate automatically during the boot?

Thanks

edit your /etc/sysconfig/netowrk-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file and change the ONBOOT=no to ONBOOT=yes

i forgot to mention it's already set to yes

check in /etc/sysconfig/networking for an eth0 profile. If you have a profile for that interface, delete it and just use the ifcfg-eth0 config file. If you have a profile and an ifcfg-eth file with different info, this could casue that problem.

If all else fails, you could use an ugly work-around hack by adding an infup eth0 to /etc/rc.local. This script runs at boot after all other services are loaded.

well, networking didn't have a profile for eth0, so i just made the sloppy hack. thanks for your help

Could you explain how to go about making a "hack"?


I'm having the exact same problem.

And it is set to ONBOOT=Yes

I have the same problem after paching som packeges on the rhn.
I dont recall which ones.

[root@www network-scripts]# more ifcfg-eth0
# MYSON Technology Inc|SURECOM EP-320X-S 100/10M Ethernet PCI Adapter
DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=none
BROADCAST=10.10.10.255
HWADDR=00:02:44:09:CE:68
IPADDR=10.10.10.10
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=10.10.10.0
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Ethernet
USERCTL=yes
PEERDNS=no
GATEWAY=10.10.10.1

I have the same problem with the Fedora Core. My ifcfg-eth0 has the right values and I cannot find any incorrect versions of it lurking around.

The sloppy hack as suggested above worked for me. Simply add

ifup eth0

to your etc/rc.local file. Perhaps there is a bug in the Fedora release. I would definitely like to know the real source of this problem.

Well Guy's I'm runing RedHat 9 and have the same issue all of a sudden my eth0 becomes inactive. All I can remember doing is creating some sub interfaces for IP addresses as secondaries.. eth0:1, eth0:2 ...ect now it will not activate, error message

Cannot activate network device eth0

from the Redhat-config -network , ummmmmmmmmmmmm Does anyone know of the fix fro this problem. My ifcfg-eth0 is configured ok , although I had in that directory the file ifcfg-eth0:0, so I copied it to --> ifcfg-eth0 and now I will reboot... but restarted the network services... I'll BE BACK

Ok Ok , I now know y my eth0 was stuck in the inactive state.... I change the configuration .. mucking around I selected ( check box alias 0) hence the config file for ifcfg-eth0:0. It seems the interface and config file must reconize itself as eth0 and not any other.. or the system will loose track of the device associated..
Thats my Theory .....

I have that problem too! Initially, it was the boot sequence. Fedora 2 loaded network before pcmcia. But now, even with the changed sequence, the light for the network card comes on, but the network is set to inactive. I tried your "ifup eth0" but that doesn't seem to help anything. I'm a real newbie here, so any help would be good.

if u have any onboard ethernet, u can disable by bios then use an normal ethernet card.

im using suse 9.1 , i had same your problem , than i changed my ethernet now it is working with zoom x5 adsl modem

Nope, mine's not onboard. I'm actually using a wireless SMC PCMCIA card. It works well when activated, but never works when I reboot. When I enter the network setup in Gnome, the device is "inactive", but pressing "activate" does not work. It tries to connect, the light blinks, but it can't get the IP info from DHCP. I found the best solution is to press the "deactivate" and then "activate" again. My gut is telling me that there's an incomplete or wrongfully deactivated network setting when I shut down creating problems when booting up. You think? Or it could simply be a Fedora bug.

I've realised that my gut was wrong about the network module. But nevermind that. The problem now is this. I can get it to "activate" on startup, but in doing so it tries to get an IP address from DHCP. But the odd thing is, if it doesn't it remains "inactive". Is there a way, like in Windows or Mac, where if there's no network, then it activates and ramins at 0% signal and when a network is near it picks it up? Because right now, it takes about half a minute trying to verify DHCP and all that's a real pain when loading up the laptop on the go. So, I've left it to forget about loading it at start up and activate it when I need to. Any way around this?

I'm using Fedora 2 and SMC PC card, BTW.

I also had this problem using Red Hat 9. I had gone through the Internet Configuration Wizard a few times, so I had eth0, eth0:1, and eth0:2. I eventually deleted all but one: eth0:2. After all that, I was having to activate it manually like you all. My ONBOOT was set to 'yes', so I looked for the configuration file (/etc/sysconfig/networking/devices), which I noticed it was named ifcfg-eth0. In my Network Config box, however, my device name was eth0:2.

So, the solution that worked for me is this: I went to my Network Configuration, clicked on the profile I wanted to use, then clicked Edit, I went over to the 'Hardware Device' tab and unchecked 'Device Alias Number' and it started working for me. This changed the device name from eth0:2 to eth0.

Keep in mind that I'm also a Linux newbie, so I don't know if this is the same issue everyone else is having, I just know that it worked for me. Good luck!