NIC driver install

[Patrick Fleming EA]

On Sat, 21 Dec 2002, cliff rogers wrote:

> Box 3-Packard Bell 133 mhz. Pentium approx. 5-6 years old now. This is what
> I have ClarkConnect installed on. It has a 2 Gig H/D, a floppy, and a CD-Rom
> and not enough RAM to use the GUI to install Clark.
> 
> I also have a Linksys 5-port workgroup 10/100 switch and I have a cable
> modem for cox internet access.
> 
> My plans are to use box 3 as a router for my LAN and a gateway to the
> internet doing duty as a firewall. I also eventually will have at least 1
> more box in my network and maybe 2 as the kids get to a point of needing
> internet access.
> 
> I had box 3 working at one point but had to power it off to do electrical
> work on my computer desk. When I powered it back up it had lost the drivers
> and IRQ/ IO information and I haven't been able to get it all working since.
> I know I did not have the rtl driver I have been trying to compile when I
> had it running but it doesn't seem to accept the drivers I used.

Any idea which drivers were loaded for these cards? 


> 
> Question: If I am not hooked up to either my cable modem or my 5 port switch
> will that keep linux from seeing the NIC's? Although it does seem to see
> that eth0 is not connected it doesn't say anything about eth1. Anyway, I
> hope this clears my dilemma up for everyone and I apologize to the list for
> being so long winded. Thanks, Cliff

As I learned recently with a statically compiled kernel, the first nic is 
probed for automatically. The second has to be explicitly setup. Are these 
cards- or at least eth0- set for dhcp? If so, it needs a DHCP server which 
can be provided by the modem if it's set to issue addresses. It's also 
possible (but I don't know all the details of how this might work) that 
since the card didn't find a DHCP server- assuming it's looking for one- 
that it never loaded. Depending upon how exactly your distro treats NICs 
you may have to add an alias for eth1 to /etc/modules.conf(I think that 
would be the same if it's based upon RH)
That would be a single line entry such as(in mine):
alias eth1  tulip #sets eth1 to use the tulip module.

Also if eth0 was working before did you try? 
#ifconfig eth0 up
#ifconfig eth1 up
RH based distros also use scripts to bring up the NICS:
#cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=static #This could also be dhcp
BROADCAST=
IPADDR=192.168.1.1
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.1.0
ONBOOT=yes #IF this is set to no... there's your problem ;)



PS- If you had the box running before with at least eth0 up and running, 
stop. Do not compile drivers, etc. It would seem your 'problems' are 
probably that the device isn't coming up at boot time. Some of these other 
checks should give you something different to look for.

I was under the mistaken impression that your cards never worked in this 
box...


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-- 
Patrick Fleming, EA
http://myhdvest.com/patrickfleming
Licensed to represent taxpayers
before Exam, Appeals, and Conference 
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