Internet Access has been knobbled

[Gary Taig]

On an old machine (10.04), from which I wish to collect (forward) all my old email, I'm finding things have changed.  When I start the old Firestarter, it reports "ETH0 is not ready".

There is an 8-port Ethernet Switch between the computer and the modem. To retain all other functionality but cut the Internet I used to simply cut power to the switch.

Anyway, there is no packet activity whatsoever, through the switch or to the modem and the aspect that makes this highly suspicious is that after I've started FireFox and attempted to connect to a server, ANY SERVER, and it reports that it cannot connect and invites checking to ensure FF has permission to access the Internet etc. THEN...  I find FF has defaulted to working offline.  I fix it, close FF and restart, and without my intervention it has been again set back to "working offline"

SOMETHING IS INTERFERING...SOMEWHERE

ifconfig reports as follows:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:25:11:1a:ed:ee
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  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:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Memory:feac0000-feae0000

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:658 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:658 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:53748 (53.7 KB)  TX bytes:53748 (53.7 KB)

What settings can I check to identify/isolate the problem?

Any help much appreciated
GaryT


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