Re: RH9 ethernet assistance please.. Can anyone help please???

From: Moe Trin (ibuprofin_at_painkiller.example.com)
Date: 07/18/04 

Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 15:58:23 -0500

In article <0ntjf0d9a05fbc786r82e8eknc15ammrsg@4ax.com>, The OTHER Kevin
in San Diego wrote:
>Pretty please with Linux on top???

Hmmm...

OK, I found the posting on Tue, 13 Jul 2004 11:58:12 -0700. Lets see...

>Quick scenario: Pentium 200 MMX w/128M RAM and 2 2g SCSI drives, Was
>running RH 7.2 for almost 2 years with no problems. Decided to
>"upgrade" to RH9 after backing up the entire system to 8mm tape.

Off topic, but what went wrong? Truthfully, I've never tried to upgrade a
system, preferring to back up anything needed, then wipe and install from
scratch. It avoids a lot of loose ends. But anyway...

>Went to set up the ethernet connection using an old (circa 1990)
>WD8013 card - same card that worked fine under RH7.2 and intially had
>problems getting the driver to load with IRQ15, IO 0x240 and Mem
>0xC8000.

Yeah, that's an oldy that should work with few problems. Did you remember
to resd the Ethernet-HOWTO, especially sections 2.7, 2.9.8, and 4.41.2?

        206074 Aug 25 2003 Ethernet-HOWTO

>Read somewhere the newer kernels like to see IRQ 10 and mem 0xD0000 with
>these old nonPNP ISA cards. Changed the card to IRQ 10, IO 0x280 and
>Mem 0XD0000

I suspect you are referring to the Ethernet-HOWTO above, but things _should_
work if you tell the kernel (via boot parameters or module clues in
/etc/modules.comf) what is going on, AND if your BIOS isn't trying to play
with your head. I'm assuming that you didn't _otherwise_ change hardware
between RH7.2 amd now.

>modprobe seemed to like that combo and loaded all the appropriate
>modules (8390.o and wd.o) with no complaints. However, when I check
>the status of the card, I get this:
>
>ifconfig eth0
>eth0
>Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:C0:64:7C:2B

[compton ~]$ etherwhois 00:00:C0
00-00-C0 (hex) WESTERN DIGITAL CORPORATION
0000C0 (base 16) WESTERN DIGITAL CORPORATION
                                8105 IRVINE CENTER DRIVE
                                IRVINE CA 92718
[compton ~]$

Well, obviously, you can see the card. But I'd suggest looking at the
boot messages (in /var/log/messages or /var/log/boot perhaps) and seeing
what the kernel saw at boot time. Is it using the right parameters there?

>eth0
>Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:C0:64:7C:2B
>UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
>RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:153 overruns:0 frame:0
>TX packets:0 errors:12 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
>collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
>RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:3192 (3.1 Kb)
>Interrupt:10 Base address:0x290 Memory:d0000-d4000

All bets are off, because the card has no IP address. I don't even know why
it's showing in the /sbin/ifconfig output in this case.

>Note the IO address of 0x290. Wierd 'cuz the card is at 0x280 and
>this brings up the 1st question.

Again - boot messages, and look at /etc/modules.conf _SOMETHING_ is OK,
because you are reading what I take to be a valid MAC address, and you
can only do that if you can talk to the card.

>What IO should I use for this card?

An old copy of the Ethernet-HOWTO (v2.66, 6 July 1998) suggested

          wd.c: 0x300, 0x280, 0x380, 0x240

>RH7.2 ran just peachy with this very card at IRQ15, IO 0x240 and Mem
>0xC8000. Runs fine if I toss in a flopy with an ODI stack and boot
>off that The 153 dropped RX packets raises an eyebrow as well.

The 153 dropped are somewhat meaningless, because the card isn't
configured.

>Since I'd set this thing up to use DHCP for addressing (Served by a
>Winblows NT 4 server running the DHCP server) I figured I'd try
>downing the interface and bringing it back down.

The only reason I've ever seen to use DHCP (or the earlier bootp) is if
you have more computers than you have IP addresses, or if the host is
moving from one network to another. Otherwise, I hard set ALL of the
addresses on networks I'm responsible for. However...

>In both instances, I can watch the DHCP console on the NT machine and
>see the server pick up the broadcast and assign an IP. The DHCPOFFER
>never seems to get back to the RH machine tho.

That sorta suggests that the I/O addresses are correct, because otherwise
you wouldn't be able to stuff packets out onto the wire.

>I thought maybe iptables was stopping the inbound stuff so I opened it
>up all the way by using the security config tool and telling it "No
>firewall".

Good point

>For giggles, I tried setting the ipstatically with ifconfig. The
>address took ok, so I restarted the network service and tried to get
>off the box. No joy. I can successfully ping localhost (127.0.0.1)
>and the NIC itself (192.168.1.100) but can't ping anything outside the
>box.

Actually, you aren't pinging the NIC, because the NIC has no brains to
be able to do anything - it's just an interface for the kernel to use IF
IT WANTS TO. The last item is stressed, because the kernel knows it's
own IP addresses, and knows not to waste bandwidth on the wire when it's
trying to talk to itself - you are secretly using the loopback, which
would work even if the NIC was burnt to a cinder (as long as ifconfig
was able to configure what remains). Try looking at the 'lo' transmit
count (/sbin/ifconfig -a) before and after pinging the NIC address. Note
that the 'lo' interface packet count is increased, not 'eth0'.

>I'm fresh out of ideas and have exhausted combinations of IRQ, IO
>address and base mem addresses with this card.. The *only* one that
>will actually load the modules is IRQ 10, IO 0x280 and mem 0xD0000

If you can down the system, try yanking the card out, and then booting and
looking at what I/O and IRQ is in use now (cat /proc/irq and /proc/ioports).
Then, install the card, and recheck. Is there an overlap? Also, look at
the contents of /etc/modules.conf and those boot messages.

>(I know just enough about Linux to be really dangerous - But I'm GONNA
>learn this stuff if it kills me!! ehheh)

Don't forget that there is a ton of information available in the HOWTOs. I
try to keep current on them, and I have 468 HOWTOs (including mini-howtos),
comprising of 708574 lines / 60 == 11809.56 pages equivalent - just over
3.9 _million_ words.

      Old Guy

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