I am dual booting Red Hat 9 and Slackware 10.1 off a Pentium 200 with 64 MB RAM. This pc is good in command line mode as an mp3 file server with a DSL connection. I actually prefer to run it in Slack since this is still being actively updated and works also as an FTP server in my network.

Thing is that my Netgear FA311 pci nic and Westell NAT router only get initialized on a cold boot with RH9. Slack will only initialize my router when I reboot out of RH9. I am running low on harddrive space and want to single boot. Since my server is set up with Slackware, this is the OS of choice for me. If I take off RH9, though, I won't be able to use my router....unless I can figure out why it is not initializing with Slack and does with RH9.

Any ideas?

This does not make much sense. Perhaps you are not using DHCP in slack. What are you doing in slack to initialize the network? Are you using defaults on the router? How have you configured the router? Give us some hints.

ifconfig

route

ethereal

The latter can watch traffic in and out of your NIC to see what is happening.

You might also look in the logs.

I configured networking using pkgtool and chose a DHCP IP setup. I haven't added anything to the startup scripts...ifconfig only shows the IP address given to it by my router (eth0 = 192.168.1.45) which is fixed or static on my network using a port forwarding setting on my router for mp3 streams. ifconfig does not show a setting for eth0 if I boot from power off.

Here is the output of ifconfig:

root@LinuxHippy:~# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:40:F4:4C:F0:80
inet addr:192.168.1.45 Bcast:255.255.255.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:316267 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:246541 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:175157643 (167.0 Mb) TX bytes:328894056 (313.6 Mb)
Interrupt:3 Base address:0x7000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:100 (100.0 b) TX bytes:100 (100.0 b)


Here is the output of route:

root@LinuxHippy:~# route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface
192.168.1.0 * 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 eth0
loopback * 255.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 lo
default dslrouter 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 eth0



ok, I now have ethereal installed. What should I do with it?

Oh, right now my ethernet card is working ok in Slack...I booted into RH9 first to initialize it and setup the router and then rebooted. If I take RH9 off my drive, my ethernet card would not give me internet use.

Do you get an IP address after

dhclient eth0

If that is the case, your startup scripts are not configured properly. What is in /etc/network/ ?

You should have something like
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

Make sure networking is turned on in the booting scripts. I am not sure how that is done in Slack. I am using Debian.

Look for files like /etc/rc*

no, this is what happens:

If I kickstart the nic card with RH9 and then boot into Slack and type dhclient eth0 I lose my internet and get a message that eth0 is already in use. Now that eth0 is not in use I type that again and get eth0 not found.

This is what I get with lspci:

root@LinuxHippy:~# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 430TX - 82439TX MTXC (rev 01)
00:07.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 01)
00:07.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 01)
00:07.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 01)
00:07.3 Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 01)
00:08.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc 3D Rage II+ 215GTB [Mach64 GTB] (rev 9a)
00:0d.0 Unknown mass storage controller: Promise Technology, Inc. 20268 (rev 02)
00:0e.0 Serial controller: 5610 56K FaxModem 56K FaxModem Model 5610 (rev 01)
00:0f.0 Ethernet controller: National Semiconductor Corporation DP83815 (MacPhyter) Ethernet Controller

Weird. I do not understand what previously running RH has to do with it.

Reset the router, if you control it and this will not harm anyone. Cycle the power, for instance.

Boot the PC up so it does not have connectivity.

do
ifconfig
lsmod |grep natsemi

If there is nothing for natsemi, try
modprobe natsemi

dhclient eth0

should do it.

Have you done anything with the configuration of the router? Perhaps RH sets it up in a manner incompatible with DHCP. Let us know what you learn.

I haven't done anything with the configuration of the router-firwall on the router and server is off (for now).

What you suggested didn't work. I saved all the output to a file:

# ifconfig

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:40:F4:4C:F0:80
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:4 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:2360 (2.3 Kb)
Interrupt:3 Base address:0x7000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:100 (100.0 b) TX bytes:100 (100.0 b)


root@LinuxHippy:~# dhclient eth0 > nic2
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.0.1
Copyright 2004 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/products/DHCP

eth0: not found

If you did not get this software from ftp.isc.org, please
get the latest from ftp.isc.org and install that before
requesting help.

If you did get this software from ftp.isc.org and have not
yet read the README, please read it before requesting help.
If you intend to request help from the dhcp-server@isc.org
mailing list, please read the section on the README about
submitting bug reports and requests for help.

Please do not under any circumstances send requests for
help directly to the authors of this software - please
send them to the appropriate mailing list as described in
the README file.

exiting.

EDIT: I did lsmod | grep natsemi before this and did see that the natsemi module was getting loaded ok.

That "eth0 not found" is telling. It means the module for natsemi must not have worked.

Try
rmmod natsemi

modprobe natsemi
To check the error messages.

You could also try
nmap 192.168.0.*
to see what ports are open on the router.

Didn't work. I rebooted into Slackware and reset the router. This is what happened:

root@LinuxHippy:~# ifconfig
lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:100 (100.0 b) TX bytes:100 (100.0 b)

root@LinuxHippy:~# rmmod natsemi
root@LinuxHippy:~# modprobe natsemi
root@LinuxHippy:~# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:40:F4:4C:F0:80
UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:1180 (1.1 Kb)
Interrupt:3 Base address:0x6000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:100 (100.0 b) TX bytes:100 (100.0 b)

*************************************************************************
Then I tried an nmap of my router and got this:

Starting nmap 3.75 ( http://www.insecure.org/nmap/ ) at 2006-03-25 21:01 EST
Interesting ports on dslrouter (192.168.1.1):
(The 1662 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: closed)
PORT STATE SERVICE
80/tcp open http
MAC Address: 00:0FB:20:CB:CC (Westell Technologies)

Interesting ports on 192.168.1.45:
(The 1656 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: closed)
PORT STATE SERVICE
21/tcp open ftp
22/tcp open ssh
25/tcp open smtp
37/tcp open time
111/tcp open rpcbind
113/tcp open auth
587/tcp open submission

Nmap run completed -- 256 IP addresses (2 hosts up) scanned in 6.800 seconds

***********************************************************************
You're giving me some really good commands that I never knew of in my 4 years with Linux-any more ideas?

After you modprobe natsemi, eth0 shows up. It is not being loaded at boot, you need to add it to /etc/rc.d/rc.modules. You also should check that USE_DHCP[0]="yes" is set in /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf

Thanks, j79zlr, that should do the trick.

The open port 80 on the router means you can also browse to http://192.168.0.1 to check or configure the router, if you need to do anything there. The docs may help log in to the router.

I thought this was it, but no. in /etc/rc.d/rc.modules my natsemi module was commented out. I uncommented and checked /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf. Then I made sure that there was a line:

USE_DHCP[0]="yes"

There was and I rebooted and reset my router. Unfortunately, ifconfig did not show etho as being initialized.

lsmod shows this:

Module Size Used by Not tainted
snd-pcm-oss 36704 0 (unused)
snd-mixer-oss 12152 0 [snd-pcm-oss]
snd-sb16 6408 0
snd-pnp 2976 0 [snd-sb16]
isa-pnp 29968 0 [snd-sb16 snd-pnp]
snd-sb16-dsp 5812 0 [snd-sb16]
snd-pcm 54504 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-sb16-dsp]
snd-sb16-csp 15244 0 [snd-sb16]
snd-sb-common 6980 0 [snd-sb16 snd-sb16-dsp snd-sb16-csp]
snd-opl3-lib 5860 0 [snd-sb16]
snd-hwdep 4352 0 [snd-sb16-csp snd-opl3-lib]
snd-timer 13412 0 [snd-pcm snd-opl3-lib]
snd-mpu401-uart 3200 0 [snd-sb16]
snd-rawmidi 12320 0 [snd-mpu401-uart]
snd-seq-device 3812 0 [snd-opl3-lib snd-rawmidi]
snd 31268 0 [snd-pcm-oss snd-mixer-oss snd-sb16 snd-sb16-dsp snd-pcm snd-sb16-csp snd-sb-common snd-opl3-lib snd-hwdep snd-timer snd-mpu401-uart snd-rawmidi snd-seq$
snd-page-alloc 4712 0 [snd-mixer-oss snd-pcm snd-sb16-csp snd-sb-common snd-hwdep snd-timer snd-rawmidi snd-seq-device snd]
soundcore 3396 6 [snd]
uhci 24284 0 (unused)
usbcore 58860 1 [uhci]
ide-scsi 9392 0
natsemi 15680 0
crc32 2880 0 [natsemi]

I think it's my router (Westell Versalink 327W) that's the problem. If I turn the router on and off while my Fedora Core tower is networked to it, the FC pc will not be able to get an IP address until I either reboot FC or reboot my other networked RH9 pc. If I reboot into Slackware after kickstarting my router with RH9 I see this when I boot:

eth0: link up.
eth0: Setting full-duplex based on negotiated link capability.
dhcpcd[74]: broadcasting DHCP_REQUEST for 192.168.1.45

dhcpcd[74]: dhcpIPaddrLeaseTime=2147483647 in DHCP server response.

dhcpcd[74]: dhcpT1value is missing in DHCP server response. Assuming 1073741823 sec

dhcpcd[74]: dhcpT2value is missing in DHCP server response. Assuming 1879048191 sec

dhcpcd[74]: DHCP_ACK received from (192.168.1.1)

kjournald starting. Commit interval 5 seconds.

************************************************************

I have this pc setup to be a server on 192.168.1.45 in my router.

If you want a staic IP address, why are you using DHCP? I'm confused, its one or the other.

My IP gives my router a DHCP address. One of my computer's on that router's network is a server and needs a static address on my home network.

I have 3 computers on my home network. 2 of those have a dynamic internal IP address. 1 of those (my Slack pc) has a static internal address. All 3 have a dynamic IP address outside my house.