I understand that someone in this forum might have an idea of how to fix this on my SuSE 9.3 laptop:

When going from home to work, and back, the interface name will change.

When going between the networks DHCP often does not update the default route (semi-understandable, both networks are configured for the same private network - BUT, why wouldn't create it in the routing table?). This has been less of an issue since that last installation/configuration of NIC drivers.

When going between networks DHCP does not update resolv.conf - OR, like today, it ammends the file with new DNS IP addresses which, for whatever reason, fails. I have to edit it manually and delete the IPs for the other network (it usually keeps my home network DNS entries and adds those for work). One difference between the two DHCP servers is at home I'm using DHCP from the linksys router, at work its a Windows DHCP server.

HELP!

Personally, I hardset my DNS addresses, but that is because it increases your response time so it doesn't have to resolve all the time. I used the ones I got from Qwest, my home DSL provider. However, I have heard people mention that you can use things like kwifimanager to hold settings for multiple locations, and have different DNS and DHCP or static configs for them all. I think I am reading though that you have a wired card, not a wireless card, so kwifimanager is not the solution for you. And though I don't know what tool it is that can hold the settings for multiple accounts, I am sure someone will come along and point out which one it is for you, unless you want to use the same DNS servers at home and work(which I doubt there is a downside for, but there might be.)

In YaST, edit the NIC and make sure you have checked "Update nameservers via dhcp".

Actually I should have been more specific. At home I'm MOSTLY on wifi. At work I am MOSTLY on a wired card. In between I'm usually wired as well.

The one issue I would have with hardcoding my DNS servers is that I live and work in two different cities, and I like to travel. If you are going to your "home" DNS server from no matter where you are you're likely to encounter timeouts - or at the least, slow responses.

SuSE gets a little squirrelly when it comes to nameservers if you have both a wireless card and an ethernet card.

What I would suggest is editing the ethernet card in YaST such that it is only activated "On cable plugin" or something like that.

This means when you bring up the wireless interface it should correctly get nameservers from the dhcp server on your wireless network. And when you plug CAT5 into the ethernet card, that should get nameservers from the ethernet network at that time (thereby clobbering the wireless network nameservers).

Yeah, that's been done for both NICs.

Not sure on the rest of it, having not made the trip to the other network yet, but so far as DHCP getting DNS - no change. It just added the servers to the end of the file. This has two questions tied to it:

1st, why does it back up the file if it doesn't REPLACE it, like the documentation says?
2nd, why doesn't Linux (or whatever piece is at fault) not work it's way down the list of DNS servers - or at least past the first two. I'm not sure that it's ever read past the first one, for that matter, as my ISP has never downed it.

Strange. I have never seen this behavior before. It should be clobbering the /etc/resolv.conf file when new nameservers are received.

I can tell you having tested, for me it never moved past the first DNS server. I could tell because I had my router set not to propagate that info, and the router's IP was set as the first DNS. And the 2nd and 3rd were my primary and secondary Qwest DNS servers. It would never get DNS info, so unless I knew the IP addy of every site and server I need to access it did nothing. So I changed it to have just my 2 DNS servers as #1 and #2, and viola, it always uses the first DNS server.. It seems like they only use the first one, period. I am sure there is a setting or something that is on by default which is at fault, but damned if I know where or what that setting might be. But it is quite odd they would do that.

Very odd in deed! On the Windows side, I could have 6 defined. It would still time out but generally only if the first 4 aren't available and the 5th took to long to not respond.

There has to be a fix, though, why would anyone be happy with this?