wifi/landline won't stay connected

[nodyl]

Hi, I think I've really managed to screw up my networking stuff beyond belief.  I'm using a Dell Inspiron 6000 and just recently put on VectorLinux.  At home, my computer was working fine connected to just the landline mostly.  Sometimes it wouldn't, but if rebooted a couple of times, it would fix itself.  When I started going to school however, and started using the school wireless, everything went all wonky.

I started running into eth0 and eth1 just switching off as they felt like.  I got things working by just doing an iwconfig to see which was the wireless and then running a dhcpcd to start it, and then it worked.  The computer had gotten worse at home too, but if I just ran an ifconfig ethx up and then ran a dhcpcd, it would work.

Starting yesterday though that no longer worked at school and I could not connect.  Now that I'm at home, the computer will only connect for a few minutes and then can't see the internet anymore, although the networks stay up and dhcpcd says it's running.  I found the how-to on how to stop eth0 and eth1 from switching off, but the computer still freaks out.  And if I run:

ifconfig eth1 down

it takes down eth0, not eth1.

I'm not anything close to network-savy and I don't even know how to begin researching this problem.

[bigpaws]

Give yourself more credit.

The first place to start is by finding the problem. You have found
one part that the interfaces are interchanging.

Check your logs in /var/log for any clues, dmesg via console may also help.

The problem can be a couple areas. First maybe that your NIC is the problem,
when both interfaces are up conflicts may arise (which I believe you have found).
Second interface switching (again you found that) from your post this is probably
not a problem. Third is DNS maybe a problem as well.

Very brief networking diagram to help you see how this works

   <Pc internet request is www.google.com> --> <DNS server (translates to ip 64.233.187.99)> -->
(request forwarded to Google) <Google Server received request> -- > to requesting PC

To test DNS in the console "ping google.com" {No quotes} if that does not
get a response try "ping 64.233.187.99" see if there is a response then DNS
settings are wrong. In console "cat /etc/resolv.conf" this will give a list of DNS
server settings. Change the settings as needed.

HTH

Bigpaws

[nodyl]

Hello, I looked in my /var/log but nothing jumped out at me.  I'm not really sure what I'm looking for or what it is supposed to look like actually.  My computer has decided to work today (or so it seems) with the landline so I can't actually ping the google IP (or at least I'm assuming that was the ip of google), but from before, if I ping google when my computer is at home not working, it says " unknown host".  That's when it doesn't work to begin with.  When it works and then just stops, it sends the ping out but then just says however many missed beacons when I finally ctrl-c out of it.  I can't actually ping properly from school until it's already working because my computer needs to give a log in page before the wifi will actually let me on.  I was told that it starts with a 10. ip address, but then when you log on it switches to a 134. 

[nodyl]

Hello,

I'm back at school and it seems that the dhcp can't connet to anything.  My computer has not switched back to 10. in the resolution file, but Ive never even seen those anyways.  So yeah, when I dhcpcd the computer times out.  What can I do?

[newt]

Reboot your system (just to get a default, loaded system).  Then, Using VASM as root, stop the builtin VL firewall.  Then try connecting to your schools wireless.  See if that helps any.  If so, then you may need to adjust your firewall configuration file to allow for additional network ranges (i.e. 10.x, 134.x).

HTH

[nodyl]

So yeah, I think my computer just wanted another reboot.

Ever since that the stopping of the switching seems to have worked well.  I do sometimes need to take down the network I'm not using or the computer gets confused, but last week, everything worked like it should.

Thanks for your help everyone.