Help: configure networking

Sun Jun 11 08:31:23 UTC 2006

Hi Morgan,

Thanks for the help. Comments below.

Morgan Greywolf wrote:
> Yeah, that's pretty relevant.  What's happening is that dhclient3 (the
> DHCP client on Dapper) is broadcasting a DHCP discovery request over and
> over.  It's not successfully communicating with any DHCP servers.  Since
> your laptop seems to, there is no problem with the usual suspects --
> network cable, switch/hub, etc.  The interval is the just the nth
> attempt to broadcast.
> 
> Which leads us to  a problem with the NIC

I can boot from a Live CD on the same computer and get on-line. So we 
can rule out any hardware problem as well. The problem is in the 
software. I tried copying /etc/network/interfaces from the LiveCD to the 
Edubuntu server but that made no difference, so the problem is 
elsewhere. The only other thing I can think of is the existence of a 
DHCP server inside Edubuntu, but I don't know if that's a plausible 
problem, or how to test that, or how to fix it.

> First off, something that puzzles me is that I see conflicting text
> here.  In the lines quoted above, you are having trouble getting a
> DHCP.  In the lines above that where you copy the ping results, though,
> you show that you have an address, specifically 192.168.0.82:
>> $ ping 192.168.0.12
>> PING 192.168.0.82 (192.168.0.82) 56(84) bytes of data.
>> From 192.168.0.12 icmp_seq=2 Destination Host Unreachable
>> From 192.168.0.12 icmp_seq=3 Destination Host Unreachable 
> 
> Not sure why that is.  Did you assign one manually?

192.168.0.12 is another computer on the network (my desktop). I was just 
testing whether I could ping other computers on the network (and I 
can't). Let me elaborate with a diagram:

router ------> switch/hub -----> My Desktop (192.168.0.12)
192.168.0.1       |
                   +-----> (eth0) Edubuntu (eth1)
                        ??????               |  192.168.17.1
                                             +-----> [thin clients]

> Anyway, what do the results of an lsmod look like?

Here it is. Thanks for the help:

Module                  Size  Used by
nls_utf8                2176  1
vfat                   13440  1
fat                    53020  1 vfat
sg                     37920  0
sd_mod                 19984  2
usb_storage            74176  1
nls_cp437               5888  1
isofs                  37688  0
udf                    88452  0
rfcomm                 40216  0
l2cap                  26244  5 rfcomm
bluetooth              49892  4 rfcomm,l2cap
ppdev                   9220  0
i915                   20608  1
drm                    73236  2 i915
speedstep_lib           4484  0
cpufreq_userspace       4696  0
cpufreq_stats           5636  0
freq_table              4740  1 cpufreq_stats
cpufreq_powersave       1920  0
cpufreq_ondemand        6428  0
cpufreq_conservative     7332  0
video                  16260  0
tc1100_wmi              6916  0
sony_acpi               5644  0
pcc_acpi               12416  0
hotkey                 11556  0
dev_acpi               11140  0
container               4608  0
button                  6672  0
acpi_sbs               19980  0
battery                 9988  1 acpi_sbs
ac                      5252  1 acpi_sbs
i2c_acpi_ec             5120  1 acpi_sbs
i2c_core               21904  1 i2c_acpi_ec
ipv6                  265600  8
af_packet              22920  4
dm_mod                 58936  1
lp                     11844  0
e100                   40580  0
dmfe                   21532  0
tulip                  51872  0
mii                     5888  1 e100
hw_random               5652  0
tsdev                   8000  0
shpchp                 45632  0
pci_hotplug            29236  1 shpchp
snd_intel8x0           33692  1
snd_ac97_codec         92704  1 snd_intel8x0
snd_ac97_bus            2304  1 snd_ac97_codec
snd_pcm_oss            53664  0
snd_mixer_oss          18688  1 snd_pcm_oss
snd_pcm                89864  3 snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss
snd_timer              25220  1 snd_pcm
parport_pc             35780  1
parport                36296  3 ppdev,lp,parport_pc
rtc                    13492  0
psmouse                36228  0
pcspkr                  2180  0
floppy                 62148  0
serio_raw               7300  0
ide_tape               37488  0
snd                    55268  8 
snd_intel8x0,snd_ac97_codec,snd_pcm_oss,snd_mixer_oss,snd_pcm,snd_timer
soundcore              10208  1 snd
snd_page_alloc         10632  2 snd_intel8x0,snd_pcm
intel_agp              22940  1
agpgart                34888  3 drm,intel_agp
evdev                   9856  1
ext3                  135688  4
jbd                    58772  1 ext3
raid1                  22656  3
md_mod                 72532  4 raid1
ide_generic             1536  0
ehci_hcd               32008  0
uhci_hcd               33680  0
usbcore               129668  4 usb_storage,ehci_hcd,uhci_hcd
ata_piix               11012  0
libata                 78992  1 ata_piix
scsi_mod              139496  4 sg,sd_mod,usb_storage,libata
ide_cd                 33028  0
cdrom                  38560  1 ide_cd
ide_disk               17664  11
piix                   11012  1
generic                 5124  0
thermal                13576  0
processor              23360  1 thermal
fan                     4868  0
capability              5000  0
commoncap               7296  1 capability
vga16fb                13704  1
vgastate               10368  1 vga16fb
fbcon                  42784  72
tileblit                2816  1 fbcon
font                    8320  1 fbcon
bitblit                 6272  1 fbcon
softcursor              2304  1 bitblit

Cheers,
Daniel.
-- 
"It's like a rainbow. Without an observer at a 23 degree angle to
the light reflected a cloud of spherical droplets, there is no
rainbow. The whole universe is like that. Our spirits stand at a
23 degree to the universe."  -- Zoya Boone, Red Mars