Dear All,

I'm a newbie following along in the Network Administrator's Guide to set up my network. I have a VIA VT6103 on-board LAN, and am using slack 9.1 with a recompiled 2.4.26 kernel. I didn't find support for the LAN in the kernel source, and don't know what IRQ to look at to find it, even after perusing the mobo manual. Any suggestions?

- Ben

IIRC That is a Via Rhine chip. Can you post the output from:
lspci -v

#lspci -v
00:00.0 Host bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8377 [KT400 AGP] Host Bridge
Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8377 [KT400 AGP] Host Bridge
Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 8
Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
Capabilities: [a0] AGP version 2.0
Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:01.0 PCI bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 PCI Bridge (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 0
Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0
Memory behind bridge: e8000000-e9ffffff
Prefetchable memory behind bridge: d8000000-e7ffffff
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:0c.0 SCSI storage controller: Adaptec AHA-2940U/UW/D / AIC-7881U
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 16
I/O ports at d000 [size=256]
Memory at eb000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=64K]

00:10.0 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 80) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 21
I/O ports at d400 [size=32]
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:10.1 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 80) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 21
I/O ports at d800 [size=32]
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:10.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB (rev 80) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 21
I/O ports at dc00 [size=32]
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:10.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0 (rev 82) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. USB 2.0
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 19
Memory at eb001000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Capabilities: [80] Power Management version 2

00:11.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ISA Bridge
Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 ISA Bridge
Flags: bus master, stepping, medium devsel, latency 0
Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:11.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586/B/686A/B PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06) (prog-if 8a [Master SecP PriP])
Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8235 Bus Master ATA133/100/66/33 IDE
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 22
I/O ports at e000 [size=16]
Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:11.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT8233 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 50)
Subsystem: C-Media Electronics Inc: Unknown device 0301
Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 22
I/O ports at e400 [size=256]
Capabilities: [c0] Power Management version 2

00:12.0 Ethernet controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine-II] (rev 74)
Subsystem: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT6102 [Rhine II] Embeded Ethernet Controller on VT8235
Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 23
I/O ports at ec00 [size=256]
Memory at eb002000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256]
Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 2

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV17 [GeForce4 MX 440] (rev a3) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
Flags: bus master, 66Mhz, medium devsel, latency 32, IRQ 16
Memory at e8000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Memory at d8000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=128M]
Memory at e0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=512K]
Expansion ROM at <unassigned> [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [60] Power Management version 2
Capabilities: [44] AGP version 2.0

#

Wow! Isn't that a handy little trick? I remade my kernel with VIA RHINE support first, then rebooted and ran "lspci -v".

So I should pass the kernel "ether=23,0xEC00,eth0" ?

- Ben

I'm not sure that you should need to pass anything to the kernel unless you are having specific problems.

Did you compile the driver as a module or right into the kernel? If it was a module then load it using insmod.

Then configure your IP address with:
ifconfig eth0 netmask 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1

Assuming that the netmask and IP address is correct for your network obviously. Then see if the card is active with:
ifconfig

If you see an eth0 entry then it should be so try pinging the card it'self and something else on your network:
ping -c 3 192.168.1.1
ping -c 3 192.168.1.2

Do you get any response?

If not - can you post the output from:
ifconfig

I got this message from the first ifconfig:

# ifconfig eth0 netmask 255.255.255.0 192.168.1.1
SIOCSIFNETMASK: Cannot assign requested address
#

The no-arg ifconfig says that eth0 is a broadcast doo-dad with the right IP address (private 192.168.1.1) and it pings just fine.

Where's the affero button? You helped me much. One last question - is eth0 supposed to show up in /dev? I don't see it there.

- Ben

Great to see you got it working!

The affero button is in the row just below each persons post.

eth0 will not show up in /dev as you don't really need direct access to the device.

oh so that's the solution.
its not supposed to show up in /dev/eth0.
i had the same problem.