Internet connection died in openSuSE
 

Ok, here's my story... my internet has just simply stopped working in openSuSE. I was browsing the internet, and had yast downloading some things for me. I also had xchat and kopete running. It was at this point that the internet just died. At first, I thought little of it, as my internet dies a lot here. But after an hour I began to wonder, so I rebooted, but to no avail. I tried restarting the modem etc, and finally I booted to Windows and found that the internet would work in XP. Thinking that the internet was working again(whenever it dies, all I can do is wait for it to come back), I booted back to openSuSE and lo and behold, no internet. At this point I have tried everything I can think of, but I still cannot get my internet working. To be clear, it's not just browsing, it's everything, IRC, instant messaging, yast, the works. There is simply no internet connection available anymore. I have restarted a couple times, booting back and forth between XP and openSuSE, and Windows has internet, while openSuSE does not. I really have no idea how this could have happened, is there a way to check and see if the network stuff is running in openSuSE or something? I don't know much about network related things.

Well, pop open a console and type these commands. If you don't know what the output means, just post it and we'll be glad to interperet.

To test if you truly do have network connection:
To see what your computer has your networking hardware doing

Ok, I pinged google and it came up with "unknown host - www.google.come"

I did the other thing too, but I'm still trying to come up with a viable way to get it on here, besides writing it down by hand and then typing it back in after booting to Windows. I tried burning it to a DVD-RW, but of course Windows can't read it, so that's out. I'll get it up here in a few minutes even if I do have to handwrite it, though.

if it couldn't resolve google into an IP address, then you aren't connected to a network, so the output of ifconfig will help us see why.

Okay, so you've been given an IP address. Perhaps your network is set up to use DCHP and you somehow got stuck with a fixed address. Try

dhclient eth0

and see if that changes anything.

Yes! That output some stuff to console, and I checked, and I have an internet connection now. Thanks a lot! :)

Hold on now, that fixed it now, but it will be broken again next time you reboot. In OpenSuse you configure everything in YAST, no? So, you need to find network settings of some kind, and where it asks about connection type for eth0, it will currently say something like "fixed IP" and then an IP address. you need to change that option to "dynamic IP" via DCHP. (The wording will probably vary) Of course, if you need to get back online in linux for more help, that command will always work again, but if you configure in YAST, you won't have to type that every time you want to get online.

Ok, near as I can tell, what I need is the DNS and Hostname Network Service configuration window in the YaST Control Center. When I run this after running dhclient, it gives me a window saying this:

The resolver configuration file (/etc/resolv.conf) has been temporarily modified by /sbin/dhclient. You have two options:
Modify the current (changed) version of the file.
Press 'Accept' now and continue editing other (nonresolver) data. You could return to this dialog later when the above service has terminated.

Either option I accept, there's a checkbox called Change Hostname Via DHCP. It is both checked and greyed out. I tried rebooting and opening up this window before running dhclient, and this prevented the popup window, but the checkbox is still greyed out. Anyway, does that sound like the right thing?

Well, it sounds right. As long as you have internet access, I guess it is right. :-)

Well, I still have to do the dhclient thing every time I reboot. This is very strange, I had never even seen these config windows before this, I didn't change any options. How on earth did my system randomly get like this?

I have no idea what might have caused the change. I hope some Suse user comes by this thread and can tell you what to change in YAST. At least now you have internet, but I hope we can make it more convenient for you.

Thanks for the help, at least now I have internet. It's a bit inconvenient, but at least I don't have to reboot to get internet now, haha. Now I wait for someone with suse to come along :)

perhaps try going to the suse subforum and asking:

How do I use Yast to configure my network to automatically fetch an IP with DHCP?

That's where all the suse users hang out.

Ok cool, I did that, thanks.