astlinux-users

[Astlinux-users] No network - NIC cards not recognised?

[Marcus <li...@wo...>]

I am using the latest Live CD, version 0.44. I am able to login, but the 
network is not assigning an IP. ifconfig only shows the loopback 
device. The error I see is:

SIOCGIFINDEX failed!: No such device

This same error appears if I try pppoe-discover.
I have two NIC cards installed. One uses the driver 8139too, the other 
uses b44. The b44 was not recognised -- is the driver missing?

I switched my ADSL cable to the 8139too card and it was recognised and 
loaded according to dmesg. However, the same "SIOCGIFINDEX failed!: No 
such device" appears.

Can anyone help?

Thanks,


Marcus

Re: [Astlinux-users] No network - NIC cards not recognised?

[Kristian K. <kri...@gm...>]

On 4/24/07, Marcus <li...@wo...> wrote:
>
> I am using the latest Live CD, version 0.44. I am able to login, but the
> network is not assigning an IP. ifconfig only shows the loopback
> device. The error I see is:
>
> SIOCGIFINDEX failed!: No such device
>
> This same error appears if I try pppoe-discover.
> I have two NIC cards installed. One uses the driver 8139too, the other
> uses b44. The b44 was not recognised -- is the driver missing?
>
> I switched my ADSL cable to the 8139too card and it was recognised and
> loaded according to dmesg. However, the same "SIOCGIFINDEX failed!: No
> such device" appears.
>
> Can anyone help?
>
> Thanks,
>
>
> Marcus
>
>

Marcus,

  The 2.6.16.12 kernel included the stable branch (0.4) is getting a bit old...

  trunk (will be 0.5) is based on 2.6.20 and will *probably* work with
your NIC cards.

  Anyways, after loading 8139too, can you send the last few lines of
dmesg and the output of "ifconfig -a"?

Thanks!


-- 
Kristian Kielhofner

Re: [Astlinux-users] No network - NIC cards not recognised?

[Marcus <li...@wo...>]

On Tuesday 24 April 2007 23:15, Kristian Kielhofner wrote:
>   trunk (will be 0.5) is based on 2.6.20 and will *probably* work
> with your NIC cards.

Okay, I'll try and see. It's odd because these NIC cards are several 
years old and work with 2.4.x Linux builds.

>   Anyways, after loading 8139too, can you send the last few lines of
> dmesg and the output of "ifconfig -a"?

Will do. Should I send the output to this list?

Another question. I tried 0.44 on a thin client with an onboard Realtek 
8139 NIC. On this PC ifconfig does show eth0. However, there's no IP.
I ran udhcpc and it said:
/usr/share/udhcpc/default.script failed : no such file or directory. 
Then it probed with "sending discover...", but could not see the 
network.

So I'm still stuck without an IP address. Is this the same problem? It 
seems related but slightly different because at least eth0 is up so 
that means the NIC driver must be working, right?

Any suggestions, or is compiling trunk my only hope?

Many Thanks,

Marcus

Re: [Astlinux-users] No network - NIC cards not recognised?

[Kristian K. <kri...@gm...>]

On 4/24/07, Marcus <li...@wo...> wrote:
> On Tuesday 24 April 2007 23:15, Kristian Kielhofner wrote:
> >   trunk (will be 0.5) is based on 2.6.20 and will *probably* work
> > with your NIC cards.
>
> Okay, I'll try and see. It's odd because these NIC cards are several
> years old and work with 2.4.x Linux builds.
>
> >   Anyways, after loading 8139too, can you send the last few lines of
> > dmesg and the output of "ifconfig -a"?
>
> Will do. Should I send the output to this list?

  Sure!

> Another question. I tried 0.44 on a thin client with an onboard Realtek
> 8139 NIC. On this PC ifconfig does show eth0. However, there's no IP.
> I ran udhcpc and it said:
> /usr/share/udhcpc/default.script failed : no such file or directory.
> Then it probed with "sending discover...", but could not see the
> network.

  That's because you were running udhcpc manually, and the script for
it is in /etc/.  Try "service network restart".

> So I'm still stuck without an IP address. Is this the same problem? It
> seems related but slightly different because at least eth0 is up so
> that means the NIC driver must be working, right?
>
> Any suggestions, or is compiling trunk my only hope?
>
> Many Thanks,
>
> Marcus
>

Marcus,

   Grab 0.4.5 and remember the "service network restart" trick.

-- 
Kristian Kielhofner

Re: [Astlinux-users] No network - NIC cards not recognised?

[Marcus <li...@wo...>]

On Wednesday 25 April 2007 03:45, Kristian Kielhofner wrote:
>    Grab 0.4.5 and remember the "service network restart" trick.

Kris, I tried this and the result is unfortunately "no lease, forking to 
background". I noticed a boot message scroll by about "try 8139too 
instead". I guess it may be using the 8139 NIC driver because 8139too 
is not available? That may explain why eth0 is up, but cannot connect. 
The NIC driver is not quite the right one. Is that possible?

I have the NIC connected to my ADSL router, the one I am using now for 
my internet connection. That's all, no other network connections. I 
would then use another PC via wifi to connect to astlinux...when I get 
an IP. Is that setup correct, or have I missed something?

Btw, where are the complete system messages so I can send them to you? 
dmesg and /var/log/messages get overwritten before I can grab the info 
you wanted.

Astlinux would be the best solution for the thin clients I want to use, 
so I hope we can find a solution to this networking issue. I don't get 
the fact that with most any Linux distro I can run pppoeconf and either 
of the two NICs connected to the router is setup. What can be missing?

Thanks again,

Marcus

[Astlinux-users] Solved: No network - NIC cards not recognised?

[Marcus <li...@wo...>]

Okay, I found a solution, but it turned out to be twofold.

1) My wired ADSL router does not serve dhcp so that was *one* reason for 
the errors. I tried a wifi adsl router, checked the dhcp server was on, 
and astlinux gets an IP.

I know, it sounds obvious once you realise, but in 2-3 days nobody came 
up with this possibility. I discovered an article mentioning the router 
serving dhcp on its checklist. I guess this could go into the wiki.


2) Both NIC drivers on my desktop PC are missing from astlinux it seems. 
On a thin client astlinux appears to use 8139cp and gives out the 
message "Try 8139too driver instead". (That coincidentally would be the 
correct driver for my desktop also.)

These are not new or exotic NIC drivers. The Broadcom 440 chip is on a 
regular Asus board, about 5 years old. The Realtek 8139 is also a very 
widespread chip. It's even in the new thin client I got.

So my request would be to add NIC drivers "8139too" and "b44", if 
possible.


Thanks,

Marcus

Re: [Astlinux-users] Solved: No network - NIC cards not recognised?

[Darrick H. <dha...@dj...>]

Marcus wrote:
> Okay, I found a solution, but it turned out to be twofold.
>
> 1) My wired ADSL router does not serve dhcp so that was *one* reason for 
> the errors. I tried a wifi adsl router, checked the dhcp server was on, 
> and astlinux gets an IP.
>
> I know, it sounds obvious once you realise, but in 2-3 days nobody came 
> up with this possibility. I discovered an article mentioning the router 
> serving dhcp on its checklist. I guess this could go into the wiki.
>
>   
Marcus,

Glad you figured it out.  I don't think we ever had enough information 
to know what your dsl router was doing.
> 2) Both NIC drivers on my desktop PC are missing from astlinux it seems. 
> On a thin client astlinux appears to use 8139cp and gives out the 
> message "Try 8139too driver instead". (That coincidentally would be the 
> correct driver for my desktop also.)
>   
Both the 8139cp, 8139too and b44 drivers ARE included and have been 
included in the 0.4 branch for some time (probably goes back to 0.2.x).

> So my request would be to add NIC drivers "8139too" and "b44", if 
> possible.
>   
Here's a list of the included network driver modules from the 0.4.5 
release.  Nearly all cards are covered.  If there is a question whether 
or not the kernel recognizes the device, you can use the lspci tool. 

3c59x.ko         bonding          fealnx.ko        ns83820.ko       
pppox.ko         starfire.ko      via-velocity.ko
8139cp.ko        bsd_comp.ko      forcedeth.ko     pcnet32.ko       
r8169.ko         sundance.ko      wan
8139too.ko       dgrs.ko          hamachi.ko       ppp_async.ko     
sis190.ko        tg3.ko           wireless
8390.ko          dl2k.ko          lance.ko         ppp_deflate.ko   
sis900.ko        tlan.ko          yellowfin.ko
acenic.ko        e100.ko          mii.ko           ppp_generic.ko   
sk98lin          tulip
amd8111e.ko      e1000            natsemi.ko       ppp_mppe.ko      
skge.ko          tun.ko
b44.ko           eepro100.ko      ne.ko            ppp_synctty.ko   
sky2.ko          typhoon.ko
bnx2.ko          epic100.ko       ne2k-pci.ko      pppoe.ko         
slhc.ko          via-rhine.ko

If 'lspci' results in one entry saying "Unknown hardware", the kernel 
doesn't support the hardware.  When Kristian finishes up trunk and 
releases 0.5, the kernel version will be bumped significantly from what 
is included now in the 0.4 branch.

If /etc/rc.modules exists, the modules in that file are loaded (in 
listed order).  You could mount the system read-write and add the b44 
module to that list (If you are able to run modprobe b44 and get working 
hardware manually).  If /etc/rc.modules does not exist, the AUTOMODS 
variable from rc.conf takes over and loads the modules listed there.

Hopefully that makes sense.

Darrick

-- 
Darrick Hartman
DJH Solutions, LLC
http://www.djhsolutions.com

Re: [Astlinux-users] Solved: No network - NIC cards not recognised?

[Marcus <li...@wo...>]

On Thursday 26 April 2007 14:05, Darrick Hartman wrote:
> If 'lspci' results in one entry saying "Unknown hardware", the kernel
> doesn't support the hardware.

Thanks Darrick, I'll try and report back.


> If /etc/rc.modules exists, the modules in that file are loaded (in
> listed order).

Yes, that all makes sense. I was just reading the archives on rc.conf 
because my next task is to get my box on the net.

Btw, is a tool for dynamic dns included?


Thanks again,

Marcus 

Re: [Astlinux-users] Solved: No network - NIC cards not recognised?

[Kristian K. <kri...@gm...>]

On 4/26/07, Marcus <li...@wo...> wrote:

..snipped..
>
> Btw, is a tool for dynamic dns included?
>
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Marcus
>

Marcus,

  Yes.  inadyn is included and several dynamic dns providers are
supported.  Check the various Dynamic DNS variables in rc.conf.


-- 
Kristian Kielhofner