networking curiosity

[david]

On Tue, 2005-01-18 at 19:15 +0000, Paul Sladen wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Jan 2005, david wrote:
> 
> Hello David (also in Britain),
> 
> > Four of the 5 machines took their IP addresses with no problem but one
> > of them kept saying "network unreachable".
> 
> You mention you were giving them static IPs (*shudder*) rather than
> DHCP'ing.  Is Machine No. 5 missing a default route (eg, accidently
> misconfigured in the config file) and complaining when it can't do a DNS
> lookup to the internet?  An incorrect netmask would probably yeild the the
> same 'network unreachable' when trying to reach the local network.
> 
> What do the following print?
> 
>   /sbin/ifconfig eth0
>   /sbin/route -n
>   sudo /sbin/mii-tool eth0
> 

Problem is I'm at home now and can't do that till tomorrow.
The netmask defaults to 255.255.255.0 under Mandrake.
I followed the EXACT same process to create this connection as I did
with the other boxes.
Because the box in question is nothing more than a client on the LAN
(meaning it does no serving or routing) I don't have a problem with
installing Ubuntu instead. I am so NOT up to speed on setting Ubuntu up
as nfs/print/file server - one day!

I just don't understand how such conflicting conditions could arise.

I'll say this though - there's nothing quite like delighted squealing
office girls to send one home with a little glow inside. 
Titter ye not!

regards

David