Network problems in RedHat 9.0 / Determination of IP addresses ... failed
 

Hi all,

There is a HomePNA network in our building, but for some peculiar reason, bringing up the network interface (eth0) fails.

The following error message is printed when the network is activated (the same error message during start-up and when using the network configuration tool):

Determination of IP addresses ... failed; No link present; Check cable?

The cable has been replaced. I even tested two different adapters and tried another PCI slot. I am currently using Red Hat Linux 9.0 and Terton 1M HomePNA PCI adapter. According to the network configuration, the network adapter has been properly installed (AMDPCnet chipset is recognized).

Unfortunately the network operator has not been able to provide any help in this. Do you have any idea might be the reason for this kind of behaviour? Perhaps some configurations are missing? Where should I start?

Regards Sami Maisniemi

Um sounds like you cant connect to the DHCP Server. Can you get a workable IP in Windoze??? Im guessing you cant. I would contact who ever is in charge of the network and tell they you are having connectivity issues. I would almost bet it is not either of the NIC cards. If you can get an IP with Windoze, then make sure you are not running IPTABLES and it is not blocking incoming DHCP Packets.

Thanks for your reply. I downloaded Firestarter, but I am not confident whether DHCP packets have been blocked or not.

Could you give me some instructions how to figure this out, please?

There is also some weird behaviour: When I try to activate just the ethernet connection, the result is "... failed; no link present ...". Anyway, I created an xDSL connection as well. If I try to active the xDSL connection first and then the ethernet connection, the ethernet connection activates succesfully?! After a while, the computer displays a message that the activation of the xDSL connection failed. Anyway the ethernet connection is still working. Very weird ...

Regards Sami

RH9 has a bug with some eth cards. I had this issue when running RH on a VmWare WK station.
To fix the problem so the ETH works.

/etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0.

add to configuration file:

check_link_down() {
return 1;
}

Hope this solves your problem.

cheers
Nex

The reason was indeed the same bug! I am wondering how I could not find this from the web pages of RH?

Now the network is working just fine :D Thanks for you help.

Regards Sami

No problem Sami, I have found that RH9's documentation of issues like this one to be extremely poor lately.

Fairly disappointing really.

Good to hear the fix worked for you though!!

cheers
nex

Thanks for the tip about redhat network workaround for vmware. That
saved me a lot of time. I probably should not have been installing redhat anyway, it is so bloated...

This helped me out as well, fantastic dudes

VMware network issue bridging NAT cable link failed
 

Just wanted to add some keywords so that people could find this help easier - I have been searching for this solution for DAYS!!

I had VMware 4.0 installed on Windows 2000 with Redhat 9.1 installed in a virtual machine. I could not get bridging, NAT or anyting else to work, INIT would just tell me that bringin up the eth0 "... failed; no link present .."

This solution fixed everything ! Now NAT works for me

Thanks!

Just to let you know, this also solves the same problem in Mandrake 9.2. Thanx!

eth0 problem
 

thanks nexissteve...you helped solve my problem also...

Another sucessful fix
 

This also helped in the new Fedora Core 1 Release and I'm sure would with the older Fedora realeases. I believe it will fix it with virtually ALL RedHat Based Distro's
Thanks for the fix!

This fixed my problem but when i reinstalled on the same machine it comes up with iptables errors - bad rule and the like!

I do so(vmware,fedora core 1), first i configure (NAT) it off-line,i successed ,and i can ping through my w2k3 host.
when i got on line ,they don't work, i can active it in any configuraion
but i can't ping through any host but the fedora itself.
how can i configure the both host-side and fedora side ? bridge or nat is ok!Thinks

aha! i successed! thanks