VL 5.8 SOHO: eth0 goes 'missing' after installation

[tortipede]

By no means expert, but also not new to Linux. Running an old RH 7.3 system dual boot with Windows -- found myself having to rely more and more on MS because RH install so dated -- VL was suggested to me as an up-to-date alternative. Liked the install, the selection of packages, speed on my old-ish hardware, etc. But networking has been a nightmare...

I have two ethernet cards -- one used to be used to network an old windows box using smb, the other connects to Belking router. On install I set up VL the same as XP and RH, i.e. my SiS 900/7016 as eth0, static IP address (192.168.2.101), router as 192.168.2.1 etc. Copied resolv.config and so on. Everything worked. Then everything stopped working -- 'network unreachable' -- eth0 not present, etc. In the end I reinstalled VL and used VASM to set eth0 up automagically using dhcpd. That worked, too -- for a while. Now eth0 has disappeared again -- lspci shows the card as detected, lsmod shows the module for sis900, but syslog says:

Aug 19 22:32:51 DrSmile ifplugd(eth0)[2811]: client: Deleting gateway ...
Aug 19 22:32:51 DrSmile ifplugd(eth0)[2811]: client: SIOCDELRT: No such process
Aug 19 22:32:51 DrSmile ifplugd(eth0)[2811]: client: Stopping network eth0 ...
Aug 19 22:32:51 DrSmile ifplugd(eth0)[2811]: client: ****  dhcpcd: not running
Aug 19 22:32:52 DrSmile nmbd[2837]: [2007/08/19 22:32:52, 0] nmbd/nmbd_subnetdb.
c:create_subnets(188)
Aug 19 22:32:52 DrSmile nmbd[2837]:   create_subnets: No local interfaces !
Aug 19 22:32:52 DrSmile nmbd[2837]: [2007/08/19 22:32:52, 0] nmbd/nmbd_subnetdb.
c:create_subnets(189)
Aug 19 22:32:52 DrSmile nmbd[2837]:   create_subnets: Waiting for an interface t
o appear ...
Aug 19 22:32:59 DrSmile kdm_greet[2978]: Can't open default user face

I know this is very similar to this topic http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=3807.0 but I can't quite figure out the solution; and I know I haven't given enough information yet -- what more might people need to know to suggest useful avenues to investigate?

TIA for any help and suggestions...

[hata_ph]

can you post your lspci and lsmod?
btw, did you try ifconfig ethx up?

[tortipede]

Not at home at moment, so will deal with lspci & lsmod as soon as I can, but... Yep, tried ifconfig eth0 up: ifconfig lists lo and (I think) nothing else; after doing 'ifconfig eth0 up' it certainly does list eth0, but with no dotted-quad address; trying to force the issue with 'ifconfig eth0 192.168.2.101 up' changes that, but doesn't actually make anything work... Sorry: all a bit second-hand at the moment, in that I can't actually read your advice from the system I need to try it out on...

[hata_ph]

make sure your NIC module is correctly loaded.......
then use VASM to add the eth0...........it worth a try...   

EDIT:

I have two ethernet cards -- one used to be used to network an old windows box using smb, the other connects to Belking router. On install I set up VL the same as XP and RH, i.e. my SiS 900/7016 as eth0, static IP address (192.168.2.101), router as 192.168.2.1 etc. Copied resolv.config and so on. Everything worked. Then everything stopped working -- 'network unreachable' -- eth0 not present, etc. In the end I reinstalled VL and used VASM to set eth0 up automagically using dhcpd. That worked, too -- for a while. Now eth0 has disappeared again -- lspci shows the card as detected, lsmod shows the module for sis900, but syslog says:

you mentioned that you copy the resolv.conf file from RH right? Did the eth0 working before you do that??

[M0E-lnx]

you could also just

Code:

ifconfig eth0 up
dhcpcd eth0

[tortipede]

Hm. The plot thickens. Currently posting from VL, but not sure why things are suddenly working, and concerned that I don't want them to go wrong again...

Thanks for advice so far: logged in under XP to save this page with advice so far; restarted in VL. Tried lsmod and lspci, as advised, then wanted to check what I got from ifconfig: it gave me a proper dotted-quad address for eth0. Checked lights on router: all happy. Pinged www.google.com -- nothing doing. Checked resolv.conf -- had been rewritten by dhcpcd. Recopied old RH resolv.conf: everything works -- for now... One obvious possibility is to change permissions on resolv.conf so dhcpcd can't over-write it: but I'm confused as to why eth0 is detected and working today, when the last time I tried it wasn't... Details (so far) follow: any helpful suggestions welcomed... e.g. if there's anything I can look/grep for in syslog that might tell me more about what the bloody hell's going on?

root:# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 730 Host (rev 02)
00:00.1 IDE interface: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 5513 [IDE] (rev d0)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS85C503/5513 (LPC Bridge)
00:01.1 Ethernet controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] SiS900 PCI Fast Ethernet (rev 82)
00:01.2 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 07)
00:01.3 USB Controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] USB 1.0 Controller (rev 07)
00:01.6 Modem: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] AC'97 Modem Controller (rev a0)
00:02.0 PCI bridge: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Virtual PCI-to-PCI bridge (AGP)
00:09.0 Ethernet controller: Accton Technology Corporation EN-1216 Ethernet Adapter (rev 11)
00:0b.0 Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq 5880 AudioPCI (rev 04)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] 630/730 PCI/AGP VGA Display Adapter (rev 31)


root:# lsmod
Module                  Size  Used by
sis                     6784  1
drm                    71324  2 sis
iptable_nat             7172  0
nf_nat                 16556  1 iptable_nat
nf_conntrack_ipv4      14860  2 iptable_nat
nf_conntrack           53128  3 iptable_nat,nf_nat,nf_conntrack_ipv4
nfnetlink               6168  3 nf_nat,nf_conntrack_ipv4,nf_conntrack
iptable_filter          3460  0
ip_tables              12020  2 iptable_nat,iptable_filter
x_tables               12804  2 iptable_nat,ip_tables
snd_seq_midi            7488  0
cpufreq_conservative     6920  0
cpufreq_ondemand        7308  0
cpufreq_performance     2816  0
cpufreq_powersave       2560  0
speedstep_lib           5128  0
freq_table              4640  1 cpufreq_ondemand
sg                     28456  0
fuse                   40724  0
snd_seq_dummy           3980  0
snd_seq_oss            30208  0
snd_seq_midi_event      6912  2 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_oss
snd_seq                47344  6 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq_midi_event
snd_pcm_oss            42176  0
snd_mixer_oss          15616  1 snd_pcm_oss
shpchp                 30496  0
pci_hotplug            28752  1 shpchp
evdev                   9088  0
snd_ens1371            22304  1
gameport               12808  1 snd_ens1371
snd_rawmidi            20032  2 snd_seq_midi,snd_ens1371
snd_seq_device          7308  5 snd_seq_midi,snd_seq_dummy,snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_rawmidi
snd_ac97_codec         92332  1 snd_ens1371
ac97_bus                3072  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm                70540  3 snd_pcm_oss,snd_ens1371,snd_ac97_codec
snd_timer              20744  2 snd_seq,snd_pcm
snd                    44644  12 snd_seq_oss,snd_seq,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_ens1371,snd_rawmidi,snd_seq_device,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore               7264  1 snd
snd_page_alloc          8712  1 snd_pcm
parport_pc             37092  0
tulip                  49568  0
parport                31560  1 parport_pc
i2c_sis630              8084  0
pcspkr                  3584  0
sis_agp                 7308  1
i2c_core               18816  1 i2c_sis630
sis900                 20492  0
agpgart                28748  2 drm,sis_agp
mii                     5888  1 sis900

root:# ifconfig
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0A:E6:43:98:48
          inet addr:192.168.2.3  Bcast:192.168.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:2 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:25 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:648 (648.0 b)  TX bytes:3950 (3.8 KiB)
          Interrupt:10 Base address:0xd000

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)


root:# ping 192.168.2.1
PING 192.168.2.1 (192.168.2.1) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 192.168.2.1: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=2.65 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.1: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.706 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.2.1: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.710 ms

--- 192.168.2.1 ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 3 received, 0% packet loss, time 1999ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.706/1.355/2.650/0.915 ms


richard:$ ping www.google.com
ping: unknown host www.google.com

richard:$ cat /etc/resolv.conf
# Generated by dhcpcd for interface eth0
search Belkin
nameserver 192.168.2.1

root:# cat /rhroot/etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 192.168.2.1
nameserver 212.103.224.52
nameserver 62.241.160.200
domain skynet
search skynet

root:# rm /etc/resolv.conf

root:# cp /rhroot/etc/resolv.conf /etc/resolv.conf

And, hey presto!

richard:$ ping www.google.com
PING www.l.google.com (64.233.183.103) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from nf-in-f103.google.com (64.233.183.103): icmp_seq=1 ttl=244 time=34.8 ms
64 bytes from nf-in-f103.google.com (64.233.183.103): icmp_seq=2 ttl=244 time=30.7 ms
64 bytes from nf-in-f103.google.com (64.233.183.103): icmp_seq=3 ttl=244 time=32.4 ms
64 bytes from nf-in-f103.google.com (64.233.183.103): icmp_seq=4 ttl=244 time=29.4 ms
64 bytes from nf-in-f103.google.com (64.233.183.103): icmp_seq=5 ttl=244 time=30.0 ms

--- www.l.google.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 3998ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 29.406/31.507/34.871/1.972 ms

TIA
--
R

[uelsk8s]

if you want to keep your resolv.conf you will need to add "-R" to the dhcpcd lines in /etc/rc.d/functions-network

from man dhcpcd

      -R     Prevents  dhcpcd  from  replacing  existing <etcDir>/resolv.conf
              file.

[tortipede]

Thx. Have now done that, so fingers crossed eth0 shows up next time. And thank you to everyone for suggestions so far -- I feel decidedly newby-ish about this -- but I know exactly where to look to find what config files to edit etc in RedHat, and I'm not yet even familiar with the documentation for Vector.

[rbistolfi]

I'm confused as to why eth0 is detected and working today, when the last time I tried it wasn't...

May be udev is switching the names for the two nics? If that is the case, this will solve your problem: http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=979.0

[tortipede]

Well, after posting the above I restarted and the machine promptly failed to get online again -- so udev doing random things sounds like a good lead to follow up -- will check when I get home. Thx++

[tortipede]

Yep, that was it -- udev swapping nic names at random. As far as I can tell, anyway -- just rebooted several times in a row, worked perfectly every time. 

Thanks++ to all who helped!

Now, if only I can find someone somewhere who can tell me how to get c-dilla to play nicely with wine...