Network: Debian and Realtek ethernet connection problem

ferentix · 10-05-2007, 10:36 AM

Last night I installed Debian, and had no real problems in the install except that it couldn't connect to the internet (via university network) no matter what I did. This was not really a problem though, at the time. But post install, I got onto trying to get my network connection up, and couldn't. This is the situation: I'm on a pretty new laptop, which is connected to the university's internal network, which gives (indirect) internet access. The NIC in question is a "Realtek RTL8169/8110 Family PCI Gigabit Ethernet NIC (NDIS 6.0)", according to the string displayed in the Window's device manager. We are supposed to be able to get the connection auto-configured via DHCP, and this works fine under my Windows partitions, and also under other Linux distro's I have booted on this machine (mainly Knoppix and at one point Sabayon).

I did actually manage to get it working at one point last night, following which I checked for security updates, and installed a couple of other packages to check it was all working OK (Nethack

). I shut it all down, and when I booted today I can't work out what the heck I did to make it work, and I can't connect, no matter what I try.

I've looked around the forums, and found the sorts of information that people seem to ask for for problems like this (didn't find any sorts of solutions though, unfortunately). I ran a few commands, and their output's are below:

Code:

------------------------
/var/log/dmesg | grep eth

r8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver 2.2LK-NAPI loaded
eth0: RTL8169sb/8110sb at 0xf8922800, 00:03:0d:62:b0:d8, IRQ 233
eth1394: eth0: IEEE-1394 IPv4 over 1394 Ethernet (fw-host0)
------------------------
/etc/network/interfaces | grep eth

iface eth1 inet dhcp
------------------------
ifconfig

eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:03:0D:62:B0:D8  
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:233 Base address:0x2800 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:26 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:26 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:2494 (2.4 KiB)  TX bytes:2494 (2.4 KiB)

------------------------
lspci | grep [e,E]th

05:05.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8169 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)
------------------------

eth0 is 'disabled' in the GNOME network configuration thingummy. eth1 is definitely the right interface, because it has the same MAC address as Windows displays for that device with ipconfig. I have no idea where to go from here, and I really hope that someone can help me (and that the above is useful information for diagnosis). As I mentioned, I know it *can* work, because it has before. The drivers are loaded, and lsmod shows this- the module 'r8169' is listed, as it should be. Proxies are properly configured in GNOME, and eth1 is set to DHCP in the GNOME network configuration.

Thank you in advance, to anyone who can help

MoonMind · 10-05-2007, 12:08 PM

There's something fishy about all this - it seems that eth0 gets configured, somehow "vanishes" (how?) and the actual card is taken over by eth1. I think (but it's not more than a hunch) that there may be a (strange) conflict between dhcpcd, the tool GNOME's Network Manager tends to use - and also is used by udev if I'm not mistaken, and other methods - like e.g. using dhclient. But actually, this shouldn't matter.

Try (from a root cli)

Code:

# dhclient eth1

to see if you can get an IP manually... That's not a real solution, but if it's working, you have at least a means to go online. I have seen (rarely, though) machines and setups that wouldn't work with dhcpcd, but don't as of yet know why...

Oh, and you could try enabling eth0 in Network Manager - what happens when you do that (somehow I think you've already done that...)?

As an afterthought

From the cli:

Code:

# ifconfig eth0 up

This may also be interesting - followed by dhclient for eth0...

M.

ferentix · 10-05-2007, 01:17 PM

OK, thanks, and I've run the commands you recommended to test things, Moonmind.

Code:

output of dhclient eth1:

Listening on LPF/eth1/00:03:0d:62:b0:d8
Sending on   LPF/eth1/00:03:0d:62:b0:d8
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 3
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 18
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
No DHCPOFFERS received.
Trying recorded lease 10.35.0.2
PING 10.35.0.254 (10.35.0.254) 56(84) bytes of data.

--- 10.35.0.254 ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 0 received, +1 errors, 100% packet loss, time 0ms

No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.


output of cat /var/log/dmesg | grep [e,E]th:

r8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver 2.2LK-NAPI loaded
eth0: RTL8169sb/8110sb at 0xf88a6800, 00:03:0d:62:b0:d8, IRQ 233
eth1394: eth0: IEEE-1394 IPv4 over 1394 Ethernet (fw-host0)


output of dhclient eth0 (after eth0 was 'enabled' in GNOME's network applet, and ifconfig eth0 up was run):

Listening on LPF/eth0/
Sending on   LPF/eth0/
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 13
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 21
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 11
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.


current contents of /etc/network/interfaces after this all:

iface lo inet loopback

iface eth1 inet dhcp



iface eth0 inet dhcp

I can see what you mean now- dmesg is talking about eth0, but gives not only a familiar sounding identifier type string ("RTL8169sb/8110sb"), but the same MAC address as eth1 shows up as having later on. Something very odd appears to be happening. Also, as you can see, dhclient didn't have any success. Any ideas, anyone?

EDIT: I got it to connect again, but I've no idea what I did differently, save that the final steps (the ones I actually meant to do, to try) were from the CL. I did

Code:

ifconfig eth1 up
dhclient eth1

and it just worked. However, I've rebooted since, and tried again, and been unable to reproduce this success :\

EDIT: OK, I don't want to count my chickens before they hatch, but I think I worked out the problem. I tried, on a hunch, ifconfig eth1 up, and as expected got the error that it was down. Then, I unplugged the cat5 cable, and tried again. This time, it worked, and I am currently posting from Epiphany. I have to do this with Windows too, but I assumed that was just some configuration error. Clearly not. This wasn't the case before I got myself locked/unlocked from the uni network, so I'll contact the network helpdesk ASAP. Thanks for helping all the same