Ethernet Issues on Portables
 

I'm looking for ideas from those more expert on networking on what I've overlooked in this situation.

We have two portables here: a Dell Latitude which has never had any issues connecting to the LAN via ethernet or to external networks wirelessly, and a Sony Vaio which has had wireless connectivity issues with each distribution upgrade. Today, both have issues connecting on the LAN via ethernet. Both hosts are running Slackware-14.0/x86_64 with all but last week's patches (which I was trying to remedy when I hit these issues.)

I'll describe the problem and what I've tried with the Dell but the Sony's issues are the same. And I've tried this on two different ethernet connections.

After booting there are no eth0 routes, broadcast or default and /etc/resolv.conf has been cleaned out. After resetting etc/resolv.conf and manually adding broadcast and default routes for eth0 I try running 'ifconfig eth0 up' but that does not bring up a running interface. Thinking that I need to restart the networking daemon, I run '/etc/rc.d/rc.inetd restart' without resolving the problem. (The details for eth0 and the default gateway for eth0 are in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf which should be read by rc.inetd when it's started.)

Not before having such uncooperative behavior from a portable I'm at a loss what to do. All the obvious possibilities: resolv.conf, routing table, networking daemon, and configuring the interface do not make a difference. Where else should I look? And, what could possibly remove routes and resolv.conf contents when the system is shut down or the cat5 cable disconnected?

Rich

UPDATE: The Sony seems to have fixed itself. However, the Dell cannot find a carrier for eth0.

I fixed /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf which somehow lost the NO on the line about using dhcp on eth0. Also had to manually run '/etc/rc.d/rc.inetd start' because it was not invoked during the boot process.

Where the carrier for the interface is controlled I don't know and have not yet found.

Rich

/etc/rc.d/rc.inetd is the startup script for services that you only want to run when they are servicing a request (imapd, ftpd, comsat, identd). It is configured in /etc/inetd.conf. What you need for managing network interfaces is /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 which is configured in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf.

I'm not sure what "cannot find a carrier for eth0" means. Are you getting an error message somewhere?

My first thought is that the NIC's driver is not being loaded. Do a `dmesg | grep eth0` and make sure the interface is being recognized. If it is then check your network cable (or use a known good cable), plug it into a switch and look for "link" lights at either end.

Post your findings and we'll go from there.