Network problems with Mdk 10.1
 

I have some sort of network configuration problems after installing Mandrake 10.1 on one of my dual-boot systems. My dual-boot laptop that I use connected to a network at work (and disconnected everywhere else) under Mandrake 10.1 went fine -- no problems whatsoever with its networking setup.

On my desktop here at home, however, under Mandrake 10.1, I'm not sure what is going wrong. Network access under WinXP (which is where I am posting this from) is still fine, and it /used to be/ fine under Mdk9.2 until yesterday morning and the install.

Installation (I dropped my 9.2 partitions, as opposed to just upgrading) went smoothly, and it recognized and auto-configured my Intel Ethernet 10/100 card that is connected to my DSL modem. When I attempt to access a Web site using either Konqueror or any other browser, occasionally it will succeed, but in almost every case, I get a message like the following almost immediately (as in less a second of elapsed time):

An error occurred while loading http://www.cnn.com/

Timeout on server
Connection was to www.cnn.com at port 80

The message is different using Firefox and takes significantly longer to come back:

The connection was refused when attempting to contact www.cnn.com.


The destination web site does not seem to matter -- the response is the same in all cases. The Web browser does not seem to matter -- I've tried Konqueror, Epiphany, Mozilla, and Firefox. I see similar behavior with Thunderbird trying to access my e-mail servers. I don't believe it is a hardware issue, given that the same connection and hardware under WinXP still work as they have ahead of the installation of 10.1. I don't /think/ it is a DNS issue, since I can in every case issue a "host -v" command within a terminal window on the desired address and it instantly returns one or more IPs for the destination. The information returned by ifconfig seems to be fine, and when the system starts eth0 on boot it reports "OK".

I've re-installed several times, trying different things with no success. I'm running iptables and guarddog, and I've tried it both before and after configuring them without any difference. I've removed the eth0 connection and recreated it. I've re-installed and manually configured the eth0 connection rather than just letting the installation process autodetect and configure, and nothing seems to make any difference. I've applied all of the Mdk10.1 updates (I had downloaded them previously and burned them to CD), and that didn't help. The system itself seems to be fine, looks great (especially after updating my nVidia drivers) -- I just can't get the networking to run...

I will be the first to admit that I don't have clue about how to begin troubleshooting this, and would be glad for any direction any of you might provide. If I need to post additional information that might shed some light on what is misconfigured, I would be most happy to do so...

Thanks in advance for any help you might provide!

--
/ron

Maybe firewall settings ?

Deactivate it and try

(something like /etc/init.d/shorewall stop . On next reboot it will start again.)

i was having simslar issues with 10.1 community. did you check md5's before and after burning cd's?
otherwise this seems to work fine:
ftp://ftp.planetmirror.com/pub/mandr...ial-Powerpack/
I havent had any issues after installing powerpack +, I am posting from powerpack right now.
prior to re-installing I couldn't use networking in mdk10.1 community.

Thanks for the suggestions...

I did verify the MD5s on the 10.1 official images that I downloaded and used to install 10.1 on both my laptop and desktop.

As for the firewall: I did not activate the Mandrake firewall, and when I looked for anything related to shorewall under /etc/rc.d/init.d I didn't find anything there.

I did go rooting through /var/log/messages hoping to see something promising, and the only things I found that look like warnings or errors were

1. There are several messages that look like the following each time the system has been booted:

ieee1394.agent[1582]: no drivers for IEEE1394 product 0x/0x/0x

2. I found a message

dhclient: eth1: unknown hardware address type 24

which was immediately followed by a successful

dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth0

(and a couple of lines with an appropriate IP for my DSL modem)


3. Lastly, I found a couple of instances of paired messages

net.agent[4618]: how do I bring up interfaces on this distro?
net.agent[4618]: add event not handled

This box does have a firewire port, but I have never used it -- could that be related to the ieee1394 messages above? Any ideas on what eth1 might be and why the dhclient is trying to get an address for it? Are either of these potentially related to my problems with eth0?

Thanks again for any help!

ieee1394
^^this is your firewire^^

are you sure that its not trying to use the firewire for networking? this happend to my roomate.(also a noob, i turned him on to linux)
disable the firewire and make sure eth0 is the rj45 cat5 utp port. one(either eth0 or eth1) is going to be ieee1394 which you are not using, yes this would cause your problem.

Thanks, deep...

OK, it looks like we might be on to something here...

Mandrake Control Center > Network & Internet > Remove a Connection lists only the following:

eth0: Intel Corp. | EtherExpress PRO/100

MCC > Network & Internet > Manage Connections lists both

eth0: Intel Corp. | EtherExpress PRO/100
eth1: IEEE1394 IPv4 Driver (IPv4-over-1394 as per RFC 2734)

MCC > Hardware lists both under the "Ethernet Card" section...


So now it seems like the question becomes how do I configure my computer correctly so that it isn't trying to treat my FireWire port as a network connection?

I've spent an hour poking through the LinuxQuestions.org forums for pointers on the above, and haven't come across anything yet -- but I will keep looking. Any suggestions would certainly be welcomed...

Thanks again for your help!

2 thing to check.
1st set up your network again and turn off hot plug. Some system can't handle this feature.
2nd Go into the boot configuration in MCC and turn on No ACPI and No Locaal ACPI

Its one of these 2 item I've had to do to get network access.

Point of clarification on the second item: "Go into the boot configuration in MCC and turn on No ACPI and No Local ACPI."

In that portion of MCC, I have
[x] Enable ACPI
[_] Force no APIC
[_] Force No Local APIC

Note the two different, but similar, acronyms: ACPI and APIC. Can you clarify the setting on each of those 3 toggles, per your note above?

(Unfortunately, I don't have access to my desktop at home during the day, so I won't be able to try either of these until this evening.)

Thanks again!

You mentioned you are using a DSL Internet connection. In MCC select ADSL, not LAN.

First remove your current connection, then add a new connection, choosing the ADSL option. The wizard will do the rest, including ask you for your username and password.

HTH,

Ernie: Thanks for the follow-up, but I don't /think/ the DSL connection is the problem here. The DSL modem is actually a modem/router/gateway/wireless LAN access point/can opener/coffee maker/pencil sharpener widget that is connected to the computer in question via an Ethernet cable. The DSL connection is always on, and works fine under WinXP and used to work OK under 9.2 as a LAN connection.

I have seen this happening once,. when you upgrade form 10 to 10.1 , mandrake may see your firewire port as another NIc, and either make it your main netowkr interface or make it your ethernet gateway.

Recommendation: go to the mandrake control center and delete all network interfaces, and then create the eth0 interface and assign it to yout ethernet interface and you should be ok. This has nothign to do with your DSL conneciton or your router (if you have any). it was to do something with the way mandrake detects the network interfaces during setup, nothing more nothgin less. This has happened during upgrades or fresh installations with 10.1 Community, 10.1 official downloade, and 10.1 powerpack...

Thanks, xavierh...

I'm not sure how to remove all of the connections -- particularly the eth1 connection that seems to be pointing at the FireWire port. As I indicated above, when I go into MCC > Network & Internet > Remove a connection, all it lists is the eth0 connection (which /appears/ to be OK). If I go into MCC > Network > Manage Connections, it lists both eth0 and eth1.

Is this something that would be cleaner to install yet one more time and catch during the installation phase somehow? If so, can you point me toward a specific step where I should be watching for eth1 to get configured as a NIC using the indicated "IPv4-over-1394" stuff?

If catching it on the installation is the best way, I am certainly open to that as a solution -- I've done it so many times, I think I can drop the partitions, re-install, re-configure, re-apply the updates and nVidia drivers in my sleep!

Thanks again for your help!

Yes it can be done in the install process. However you can do the same in the MCC, I've even been able to just re-do the eth0 configuration with out having to remove it first.

That is exactly right. You can do it both ways, either during the installation or after. The point is not to panic, since the situation can easily be fixed using the mandrake control center...

Even windows xp deems the firewire port as another network interface, so this is not something that only mandrake does...

xavierh and courttb:

Given that the eth1 connection is not listed in the "MCC > Network & Internet > Remove a connection" list (only the eth0 connection is listed), how do I remove it? Or do I even need to remove it? Is there some other means of disabling it?

That's the part that has me stumped -- or am I just being ultra-dense and not understanding?

Thanks again for all your help on this!