Re: Fedora 1: Network card problem - dhcp / cable modem ISP

From: David W. Legg (David.Legg_at_nospam.legg.uklinux.net)
Date: 01/21/04 

Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 20:09:42 +0000

I have heard that kudzu messes up network cards on boot-up.
Why not try disabling kudzu?

Arnoud de Geus wrote:
> Hi
>
> I have the following problem:
>
> I have a box with 2 ethernet cards (generic 3Com). One card
> eth0 for connection to a cable modem and my ISP (dynamic address
> via dhcp), and one card eth1 for my internal network via hub. The eth0
> network card came with my cable modem. The cable modem can only
> interface with this card by probing it's mac address or something
> like that. The box is rather old an runs Redhat 9 but works fine.
>
> Both cards are:
>
> eth0 3Com Corporation|3c900B-TPO[Etherlink XL TPO] - ISP
> eth1 3Com Corporation|3c905B 100 BaseTX [Cyclone] - internal
>
> both cards use the 3c59x module, a 3Com 3c59x/3c9xx ethernet driver
> LK1.1.18-ac 1 July 2002, compiled for Redhat 9 kernel 2.4.20-8.
>
>
> I upgraded to a new and faster box, and thus moved both ethernet
> cards to this box. During this upgrade I also installed Fedora Core 1.
> I booted the installation with CD, and installed Fedora using FTP.
> During installation the eth0 makes connection with my ISP through
> the cable modem just fine, and is assigned IP parameters via dhcp.
> The FTP installation is finished, but after the first boot the
> trouble begins.
>
> The booting process fails to bring up the eth0 card, so no internet!
> Using the Network configuration program and trying to activate the
> device results in:
>
> Determining IP information for eth0... failed, no link present. Check
> Cable?
>
> again both cards use the 3c59x module, a 3Com 3c59x/3c9xx ethernet driver
> LK1.1.18-ac 1 July 2002, compiled for Fedora 1 kernel 2.4.22-1.2115.nptl.
>
> First I thought this was some sort of modules problem. But changing eth0
> to my internal network (swapping the network cables and giving eth0
> a static address) works fine! The device works fine, so no modules problem.
> Of course using the cable modem on eth1 doens't work as described above.
>
> Second I thought it could have something to do with the order of the
> cards. I swapped the ethernet Cards in the PCI slots (swapping eth0 and
> eth1) but this also does not seem to be the resolution.
>
> Using the exact same setup on my new box, and using some sort of
> Windows version results in two working cards. Also taking into account
> that the FTP installation of Fedora 1 on eth0 works fine can only result
> in the conclusion that this really is a linux software (Fedora 1) problem.
> What has changed from Redhat 9 to Fedora 1? Looking at the module driver
> version: this seems to be the exact same version (although the binary
> sizes: Redhat 9: 3c59x.o 40588, Fedora 1: 3c59x.o 41364 do differ
> considerably, possibly explained by different compiler versions / swithes
> used).
>
> Does anyone seem to have a clue what is going on here, and how this can
> be resolved? I did seem to have this problem on my old box on some beta
> version of Redhat (8 or 9, if forgot).
>
> Are 3Com and or the 3c59x.o module driver of inferior quality? Does anyone
> else has the same kind of problems?
>
> Can one assign a different MAC address to an ethernet card, and what is
> the correct way to do this? Some kernel boot parameter, or just the network
> configuration utility?
>
> Arnoud.
>

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