[Solved] How do I change ethernet ports?

[thecdn]

I recently had the ethernet ports on my motherboard taken out by when my dsl modem blew so I put in an ethernet card.


When I reinstalled Vector 5,9 Gold the other day, I could see the it was setting up 'Realtek......', the new ethernet card, but I find I have no internet connection when I boot it.

In the other distros I have installed, pclinuxos, arch, pardus, sidux, etc, I found a tool or pgm to set the correct ethernet port. I can't find such a tool in Vector - I've looked at vasmcc, but all it seems to do is ask me if I want to use dhcp and that's it, no opportunity to select ports.

Where in Vector 5.9 can I confirm if the correct ethernet port is being used, and if not, change it?

[M0E-lnx]

try ifconfig as root in a terminal

you should see something like this

Code:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:16:36:9A:C0:72 
          inet addr:xx.xx.xxx.xx  Bcast:xx.xx.xxx.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:666 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:744 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:458381 (447.6 KiB)  TX bytes:133674 (130.5 KiB)
          Interrupt:16

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)

if All you see is the "lo" section then you try bringing up the interface like this

Code:

ifconfig eth0 up

if there is only one ethernet port on your box, this should work... otherwise, if this does not work, try eth1

On whichever interface the command works, you'll have to get an IP address, so if you get no error on eth0 then do

Code:

dhcpcd eth0

or eth1... depending on which one worked...
That is assuming you use dhcp... if you use static ips, then I can't help you there... maybe someone else


HTH

[JohnB316]

To add to M0E-lnx's response, if it is possible to disable the built-in network port via the laptop's BIOS, I would suggest doing so. Another thread that may be helpful is this one on the udev way to stop network interfaces from changing, just in case ifconfig returns both the built-in port and the card as being active: http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum2/index.php?topic=979.0

HTH,
John

[thecdn]

The "ifconfig eth2 up" - "dhcpcd eth2" combination works, but not persistently. I have to run it on each boot. I'll try to check the bios settings and hope that does something, that thread John referenced looks scary to me 

[rbistolfi]

The "ifconfig eth2 up" - "dhcpcd eth2" combination works, but not persistently. I have to run it on each boot. I'll try to check the bios settings and hope that does something, that thread John referenced looks scary to me 

The bios settings will probably do it, but the Joe howto pointed by John is safe if you want to give it a try
You just need the MAC address for your card, you can find it with ifconfig, it is something like " 00:1B:FC:79:B1:21 ".

[thecdn]

Changing the bios settings did it, we have internet on every boot. Thanks one and all for the quick and excellent help.