[gentoo-user] [OT] Network Trouble

[gentoo-user] [OT] Network Trouble

[Hilco Wijbenga]

Hi all,

My Gentoo box can no longer connect to the Internet. I was downloading
something and the connection just died on me.

(I have my Gentoo box behind a firewall box [also Gentoo, of course];
I moved the cable that connects the firewall [to my ADSL modem]
directly to my Gentoo box to make the setup simpler during testing.)

* I checked the cable and the ADSL modem with my firewall box and they're ok;
* I replaced my NIC with one from my firewall box and even tried a
different slot;
* I had DHCPCD use the MAC that my firewall box uses (just in case my
ISP cares).

The NIC is recognised and the right module/driver is loaded. The light
(LAN Link or something like that) on the ADSL modem, however, never
comes on (it does when I move the cable back into my firewall box).

What could be causing this? Is this a motherboard issue? It seems to
me that at least one of the NICs I tried must be ok. :-) Any advice
and/or ideas would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Hilco

P.S. How does one check that a NIC is operational anyway? If I "ping
localhost" does that actually excercise the NIC or is it all software,
inside the kernel?
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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Network Trouble

[Roy Wright]

Hilco Wijbenga wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> My Gentoo box can no longer connect to the Internet. I was downloading
> something and the connection just died on me.
>
>   

Howdy,

I've been experiencing something similar the past few weeks.  I found
that if I
kill dhcpcd then restart it then my connection resumes.

royw-gentoo linux # dhcpcd -k eth0
royw-gentoo linux # dhcpcd eth0


HTH,
Roy


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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Network Trouble

[Kenneth Prugh]

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On Fri, 14 Dec 2007 09:59:09 -0800
"Hilco Wijbenga" <hilco.wijbenga@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> My Gentoo box can no longer connect to the Internet. I was downloading
> something and the connection just died on me.
> 
> (I have my Gentoo box behind a firewall box [also Gentoo, of course];
> I moved the cable that connects the firewall [to my ADSL modem]
> directly to my Gentoo box to make the setup simpler during testing.)
> 
> * I checked the cable and the ADSL modem with my firewall box and
> they're ok;
> * I replaced my NIC with one from my firewall box and even tried a
> different slot;
> * I had DHCPCD use the MAC that my firewall box uses (just in case my
> ISP cares).
> 
> The NIC is recognised and the right module/driver is loaded. The light
> (LAN Link or something like that) on the ADSL modem, however, never
> comes on (it does when I move the cable back into my firewall box).
> 
> What could be causing this? Is this a motherboard issue? It seems to
> me that at least one of the NICs I tried must be ok. :-) Any advice
> and/or ideas would be appreciated.
> 
> Cheers,
> Hilco
> 
> P.S. How does one check that a NIC is operational anyway? If I "ping
> localhost" does that actually excercise the NIC or is it all software,
> inside the kernel?

Are you using the sky2 driver for your NIC by chance?

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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Network Trouble

[Hilco Wijbenga]

On Dec 14, 2007 3:37 PM, Roy Wright <roy@wright.org> wrote:
> Hilco Wijbenga wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > My Gentoo box can no longer connect to the Internet. I was downloading
> > something and the connection just died on me.
> I've been experiencing something similar the past few weeks.  I found
> that if I
> kill dhcpcd then restart it then my connection resumes.

I don't use dhcpcd as I connect directly to my firewall (with a
192.168.*.* IP). I do use the livecd for testing but its dhcpcd works
(I've used it several times before).

I've had dhcpcd problems as well but those were easily fixed by
downgrading to a previous version.
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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Network Trouble

[Hilco Wijbenga]

On Dec 14, 2007 3:46 PM, Kenneth Prugh <ken69267@gmail.com> wrote:
> Are you using the sky2 driver for your NIC by chance?

Nope, I've tried a tulip and a 3COM NIC. Pretty run-of-the-mill. :-)
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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Network Trouble

[Mick]

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On Saturday 15 December 2007, Hilco Wijbenga wrote:
> On Dec 14, 2007 3:46 PM, Kenneth Prugh <ken69267@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Are you using the sky2 driver for your NIC by chance?
>
> Nope, I've tried a tulip and a 3COM NIC. Pretty run-of-the-mill. :-)

Since you seem to have checked that the problem is not related to 
cables/NICs/modem/router - does the machine work fine otherwise?  If you had 
bad memory/fs corruption during your download when the NIC failed it may be 
that you need to remerge some parts of your system.
-- 
Regards,
Mick

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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Network Trouble

[Hilco Wijbenga]

On Dec 15, 2007 8:37 AM, Mick <michaelkintzios@gmail.com> wrote:
> Since you seem to have checked that the problem is not related to
> cables/NICs/modem/router - does the machine work fine otherwise?  If you had
> bad memory/fs corruption during your download when the NIC failed it may be
> that you need to remerge some parts of your system.

Mmmh, so you think it could be software after all? I was wondering
whether I should replace the motherboard. I think distfiles still has
all files so remerging everything is probably possible.

How does one check that a NIC is working? Does "ping localhost"
actually use the NIC? Or is that all just software?

And, yes, the machine works fine otherwise. It's just the network
that's not working.
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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Network Trouble

[Benno Schulenberg]

Hilco Wijbenga wrote:
> Mmmh, so you think it could be software after all?

No, if the light on the firewall and on the NIC itself don't come on 
when you plug in the ethernet cable, the card isn't working.  When 
a different slot doesn't work either, it seems something on your 
PCI bus is dead.  Does 'lspci -v' still report allright?

> How does one check that a NIC is working?

By checking that the light goes on and that one can ping the thing 
at the other end of the cable.  :)

> Does "ping localhost" 
> actually use the NIC? Or is that all just software?

Localhost is all software.  No one on the network knows who 
127.*.*.* is.

> And, yes, the machine works fine otherwise. It's just the network
> that's not working.

Do you have any other PCI cards you could try, an old sound card 
perhaps?

Benno
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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Network Trouble

[Hilco Wijbenga]

On Dec 17, 2007 12:33 PM, Benno Schulenberg <benno.schulenberg@gmail.com> wrote:
> No, if the light on the firewall and on the NIC itself don't come on
> when you plug in the ethernet cable, the card isn't working.  When
> a different slot doesn't work either, it seems something on your
> PCI bus is dead.  Does 'lspci -v' still report allright?

I'm fairly certain I ran lspci and that still worked. (I tried so many
things I'm not entirely sure of what I did when anymore.) :-)

> > And, yes, the machine works fine otherwise. It's just the network
> > that's not working.
>
> Do you have any other PCI cards you could try, an old sound card
> perhaps?

Yes, I have a PCI sound card and it definitely works. My Oggs are
still playing. :-)
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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Network Trouble

[Benno Schulenberg]

Hilco Wijbenga wrote:
> Yes, I have a PCI sound card and it definitely works. My Oggs are
> still playing. :-)

Does the soundcard also work in the slots that you tried the NICs 
in?  (If the soundcard doesn't work there, don't try the NIC in the 
original slot of the soundcard, unless you're prepared blowing up 
that slot too.)

Benno
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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Network Trouble

[Hilco Wijbenga]

On Dec 18, 2007 11:04 AM, Benno Schulenberg <benno.schulenberg@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hilco Wijbenga wrote:
> > Yes, I have a PCI sound card and it definitely works. My Oggs are
> > still playing. :-)
>
> Does the soundcard also work in the slots that you tried the NICs
> in?  (If the soundcard doesn't work there, don't try the NIC in the
> original slot of the soundcard, unless you're prepared blowing up
> that slot too.)

Yep, the soundcard also works in the slot where I used to have the
NIC. I also tried lspci (just to be sure) and it works. It even
recognises the NIC just fine.

I'm starting to wonder if I have two broken NICs after all. It seems
very unlikely to me, however. Then again, a new NIC doesn't cost much.
:-)
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Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] Network Trouble

[Benno Schulenberg]

Hilco Wijbenga wrote:
> I'm starting to wonder if I have two broken NICs after all.

Do they work when you plug them into your firewall box?  If they do, 
then it can really be only the cable.  Are you certain that you're 
not using a cross-over cable when you need a straight one, or the 
other way around?  And are you certain the cable is not subtly 
broken?

Benno
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