configuring adsl on red hat enterprise ES 3.0
 

hello everyone,
I am fairly new to this forum as i am to linux itself. Forgive me if my questions sound a bit too elementary , it's just that i have no clue whatsoever about this OS and i'd like to make use of ur expertise.
Now with the intro done, i'd like to pose my question. I am using the red hat enterprise ES 3.0 flavor of linux on my computer. While installing this flavor i was asked to configure the internet connection which i did by entering my connection details and while booting it checks the eth0 connection and it says ok..but when i open mozilla and browse the sites arent opening. I am confused.what could be the problem?? i'd be grateful if u cud get back to me asap.
thanks in advance..have a great day!

What does ifconfig output? If you see eth0 (with a valid ip) listed, then what does /etc/resolv.conf contain? Can you ping the websites you're attempting to view?

hey rocket,
thanks for da trouble uve taken. i tried out ifconfig..it said bash:command not available. The same output appeared for the /etc/resolv.conf and when i tried to ping google it said unable to find host.

Did you try those commands as root, or as a non-priv user? I could be mistaken, but I'm under the impression that "ifconfig" is a "standard" tool on Linux. Try this:

$ su <enter>
password: <enter your root (administrator) password and hit enter>
# ifconfig -a <enter>

If that still fails, let me know. (and know that I'm trying to help and don't intend in any way to insult your intelligence...I only typed this out in this detail because you've stated that you're new to Linux).

no no not at all..i appreciate u trying to help and i havent taken this as an offense either because i AM that new to linux. i just tried this too..i got the same message it said ifconfig command not found . I dont seem to understand.I dont understand why...

Most of the time it'll be located at /sbin/ifconfig, and you should be able to find it with "which ifconfig" or "find / -iname ifconfig" (both run as root). If you find it, make sure the path to it is on your PATH. Did you get any errors about corrupted or unreadable packages when you installed?

If you don't find ifconfig anywhere, then you could download the rpm for net-tools and install that. It's been QUITE some time since I've used Red Hat, but that *should* give you ifconfig.

i typed in "which config" and all i get is /usr/bin/which: no ifconfig in(/usr/kerberos/sbin: /usr/kerberos/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/prasaad/bin)..ne idea what this means?

That just means ifconfig isn't on your PATH (if it's on your machine at all). Try this:

$ su
<enter the root password>
# /sbin/ifconfig

and if that doesn't work, try

# /usr/sbin/ifconfig

I don't want to seem like I'm beating a dead horse, so if that doesn't work I'll gracefully bow out and let someone with more RHE specific knowledge step in...

i did exactly that and yes it did give me info on eth0 regarding the ip address that i had set while installing and the subnet mask as well as the DNS server. so i have assumed that ifconfig does exist in my comp now..if i may.Now how is it that i should proceed???

Ok, now we're making some headway...

Check to see if you can open /etc/resolv.conf in a text editor (vi, emacs, whatever) and tell me what it contains.

Then open a terminal, use "su" to switch to root, and run these commands:

"/sbin/route" (if you get bash: /sbin/route: command not found, then type in "find / -iname route", write down the complete path you get (i.e. /sbin/route), then execute route with the entire path). Let me know if you have an entry "default", and if so, is it the correct gateway for your computer?

Last thing I need you to do is this: post the output from /sbin/ifconfig (eth0 and lo). (If the computer you're on has a public ip, you'll obviously want to scramble it or just put in xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx in your post).

when i opened the resolv.config file in the text editor i got the followin info:
nameserver : xx.xx.xx.xx
nameserver :xx.xx.xx.xx
I then searched for the location of the command route and went into the specified directories and typed ls, for which i got:
error_burst gc_interval max_delay min_
error_cost gc_min_interval max_size mtu_expires...etc etc three rows and five cloumns...
on runnin ifconfig i got:
eth0 Link cap:Ethernet Hwaddr (address was given)
inet addr: xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Bcast:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
Mask :255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500
Metric:1
rx packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0
tx packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0
lo Link ecap:Link loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING...etc etc etc
i hope this would suffice!

Check a windows machine that has internet access (on the same network) and make sure the nameservers are the same ones that you have listed on the Linux machine. Also, try to ping your gateway.

You mentioned that you ran "ls" in the directory that contained "route"...that doesn't help me...I need the output of the "route" command. Did you try to run /sbin/route? If that doesn't work try /usr/sbin/route.