The main problem is probably going to be me and the fact that this is the first time that I am trying to use a command line only operating system.

But anyway, I have installed Ubuntu server 6.06 LTS on my once server 2003 box. The primary NIC is eth1 that comes up on boot and receives the DHCP information from my ISP. (Usually there is a hardware firewall there but I have removed it for the time being to make life easier with the server install.)

The problem being is that I cant seem to get the secondary NIC (eth0) to come up at boot and act as the DHCP server for my internal network. I'm sure that the problem lies in /etc/network/interfaces or /etc/dhcpd.conf. I just cant for the life of me figure out the correct config for them.

What I would like to end up with is the web/ftp/mail servers running on eth1 and the internal network running from eth0.(obviously with internet access,SSH server and SAMBA server)

Thanks in advance.

Don't know about your version, but in mine, I've found a few things.

First, note with ifconfig which or both came up. I can't tell from your post if you have got this far, so I'll assume you didn't and go thru the places I'd look.

Check your /etc/iftab

here's an example:
-----------------
# This file assigns persistent names to network interfaces.
# See iftab(5) for syntax.

eth0 mac 00:50:ba:f3:c2:d5 arp 1
eth1 mac 00:02:e3:10:dd:e3 arp 1
-------------------------


Next, what is found at boot time, check out /var/log/dmesg, scan for eth

eth0: RealTek RTL-8029 found at 0xd000, IRQ 11, 00:50:BA:F3:C2:d5

(Make sure the mac addresses agree with what you have in iftab, but frankley, I'm not sure which files are conf's that the gui uses vs. which ones are strictly command line. Likewise, I don't what triggers network/interfaces as I can't entirely get that working myself. So, I resort to some command line options, like these: )

Then, after you log in, try:

ifdown ethX
ifup ethX (for X = 0 and 1)

See which of these works, (you may not need the ifdown, but in my case, the system was out of sync and thought they were up, when they were not - ifdown reset that)

Last, if the above works, you can place them in /etc/rc.local to get them to work at boot time.

Verify with ifconfig to see that both are up.

Once you have these up and running, then you can move on to the dhcp server, but that's something someone else will have to assist with.

Hope I've been of some help.