Thanks to MDR, I changed the Basic Settings to Maual from DHCP, assigned 192.168.0.4 IP address and in the NetMask gave 255.0.0.0 and tried 255.255.255.0 earlier, device eth0 and module as tulip. I had posted earlier in a thread called eth0 Operation Failed.
Now I do not see that error message in the boot up time. eth0 loads as OK.
When I rebooted my system Iam able to ping localhost and I am able to ping 193.168.0.4 which is my local machine.
I use RT314 router which is connected to my DSL modem. The IP address of my RT314 is 192.168.0.1 Iam not able to ping any of my other pcs plus the internet.
My default gateway is set as 192.168.0.1
When I do ifconfig only lo is shown. When I do ifconfig -a I see eth0 and lo. eth0 has the 192.168.0.4 IP address and BCastaddr is 192.168.0.255 and Mask is 255.0.0.0
Somewhere in one of the discussion some one had mentioned change MTU from 1500 to 1498 or something like that. If that would solve my problem How will I change an MTU.
Also, like in Win 2K how can I assign a WORKGROUP to this Linux Box?

Thanks

I'm a bit confused now.. you can ping a router, but eth0 is not listed from ifconfig? That is physically impossible isn't it? what does the output of 'route' say?

well assuming that's not the case, activate et0 by 'ifup eth0'.

WORKGROUP name is part of samba. Would i be right in presuming that you've not touched samba yet? after all it is usually on the 3rd line at worst of the standard smb.conf file. if you're writing one from scratch just enter 'WORKGROUP=insertwgnamehere' in the [global] section of /etc/smb.conf (assuming that's the right location) and make sure samba is installed and all that.

well, any further help from me is a no go really.. as erm.. i don't actually know what a router is. I take it it's special hardware? :-s i'm sure i should know... i really should... ahh well.

Thanks Chris.

Clarification. I am able to ping only my machine, which is 192.168.0.4.
My router RT314 which is 192.168.0.1 is not pingable. My other PCs 192.168.0.2-3 is also not pingable.

Yes I have not done anything with Samba Yet.

Can anyone throw any light?

so what does 'route' provide you with? I'm still a bit confused how you can even ping your net IP address without an interface being up... Oh actually... i can do that too...

well yeah, your network interface isn't running then. make sure in your /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg0-eth0 file that ONBOOT is set to "yes" to make it automatically start at boot. there's proabbly a gui to do that for you.. but where's the fun in that?

If I could be as intrusive as to throw out a quick explanation of a router for Chris's benefit (no man deserves to NOT know router stuff - I love working with them)

Routers are special hardware, with the sole purpose of taking packets from one network and routing them onto another network. This is generally seen routing between physical network segments and subnets; the default gateway of a particular network is generally a router, or a PC working as a router - multihomed, with one NIC on one subnet, and the software routing packets to anther NIC on another subnet. Hence how we communicate on the internet - packets leave your network via your router, hit the router on your ISP's network, route from there to another, etc, etc. Most of what you see in the output of TRACEROUTE is a string of routers handing off packets to each other.
The routing is handled in a VERY quick manner, optimally. Since most routers are handling a TREMENDOUS amount of throughput, they use special routing/switching hardware and can therefore be *very* expensive. These are the ones found on corporate networks and can consist of many interfaces joining together several different networks, whereas home users' cable modems and the like are on a lower level.
Network engineering is a fascinating field, you might want to check into some of the literature you can find on it, from sources such as Cisco, etc.
Hope you don't mind the input

cvlinux,

If typing ifconfig without the -a option shows only the loopback device, then for some reason eth0 is still not configured correctly, even though you no longer get a failure message on boot. The "-a" option for ifconfig forces it to show inactive interfaces as well as the active ones.

-When you type "ifconfig -a", what does it show for eth0. Please post the output.

- Does "lsmod" show the tulip driver to be loaded?

- In your post you list your netmask as 255.0.0.0. For the range of IPs you're using on your internal network, the netmask (for all machines on the network) should be 255.255.255.0. The broadcast address you gave is correct.

- As Chris suggested, please post the output of the "route" command.

- As far as changing the Maximum Transmission Unit size goes, you can do that by passing a parameter to ifconfig. More on that here. Changing the MTU value is usually done to optimize your throughput by altering the MTU to match an optimum packet size. I don't think this has anything to do with your current problem.

cvlinux,

I have the same exact problem. Did you find a solution for it yet?

PLEASE contact me back.

Shay Horowitz

Shay,
I got your email, but it would be good if you could provide a little more information. Please describe the model of network card you are using, what module (driver) you are loading for it, and what other machines are connected to the router.
Also, specifically describe any errors you've encountered and what steps you've taken to troubleshoot them. If your problem is similar to cvlinux's, the router probably isn't the issue.

Anyway, post your response here, and as I said, try to make it as detailed as possible.

As someone else said, you need to check your Subnet mask. Most people use 255.255.255.0 for a 192.168.0.x network, but you can use 255.255.0.0 or 255.0.0.0 or any number of other combinations, but in the end you have to make sure that whatever you use puts everyone on the same network.

So.. if all of you ipaddys for you PC's and gateway are on 192.168.0.x network, then you can use 255.255.255.0, or 255.255.0.0, or 255.0.0.0, but they ALL have to be using the SAME subnet mask.

I will bet anything that your router is using 255.255.0.0 or 255.255.255.0 so try both of those and you should be good to go.

Kevin