Just installed RH8. Using eth0 I can ping my IP and 127.0.0.1
hosts and resolv.conf have my IP / hostname info.
Problem I can't accessing even local subnet devices until I restart the network ... twice.
-In gnome I start a terminal and run ping to a local subnet box (host unreachable)
-I go to the Services applet and select Network then Restart. ... no change in the ping status. I wait a minute ....
-I hit Restart again. This time within a couple of seconds the ping is returned.

Ideas???

Have you noticed anything in your /var/log/messages file when this happens?

check your config more often
route
ifconfig
to see what has changed between your double net restart

I've checked ifconfig and route before and after ... no change there. However there are some rtnetlink lines in messages that I don't understand...
*****
Feb 6 15:28:47 mybox ifup: RTNETLINK answers: File exists
Feb 6 15:28:47 mybox ifup: Command line is not complete. Try option "help"
Feb 6 15:28:47 mybox network: Bringing up interface eth0: succeeded
Feb 6 15:29:01 mybox network: Shutting down interface eth0: succeeded
Feb 6 15:29:01 mybox network: Shutting down loopback interface: succeeded
Feb 6 15:29:01 mybox sysctl: net.ipv4.ip_forward = 0
Feb 6 15:29:01 mybox sysctl: net.ipv4.conf.default.rp_filter = 1
Feb 6 15:29:01 mybox sysctl: kernel.sysrq = 0
Feb 6 15:29:01 mybox sysctl: kernel.core_uses_pid = 1
Feb 6 15:29:01 mybox network: Setting network parameters: succeeded
Feb 6 15:29:01 mybox network: Bringing up loopback interface: succeeded
Feb 6 15:29:01 mybox kernel: tg3: eth0: Link is up at 100 Mbps, full duplex.
Feb 6 15:29:01 mybox kernel: tg3: eth0: Flow control is off for TX and off for RX.
Feb 6 15:29:03 mybox ifup: RTNETLINK answers: File exists
Feb 6 15:29:03 mybox ifup: Command line is not complete. Try option "help"
Feb 6 15:29:03 mybox network: Bringing up interface eth0: succeeded
***

>Command line is not complete
you see? this is probably the reason....

"Feb 6 15:29:03 mybox ifup: RTNETLINK answers: File exists"
see this line in your messages
it means that your routing comandline isn't good
you are probably missing something, double check output of
route and ifconfig you may use new ip route2 like this
ip ro ls, ip ru ls,

Here is my route before and after the network restarts...

Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
xxx.xxx.xxx.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
127.0.0.0 * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
default xxx.xxx.xxx.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0


After...

Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
xxx.xxx.xxx.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
127.0.0.0 * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
default xxx.xxx.xxx.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0

******
Look the same to me. However, when I run 'route' while the network is off-line the last line (default gw) takes several seconds to be displayed.
When the network is on-line the info is displayed instantly.

One other wrinkle perhaps. I have two NICs. The onboard NIC is not activated (confirmed - doesn't show up in dmesg). But this might have some kind of side effect I'm not aware of.