ifup eth0 gives "Determining IP info... Operation Failed"

[Mark Hicks]

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help me get off the ground wth
Linux.

SUMMARY:
================

The network interface returns "Failure" when it's loaded.

PROBLEM:
================
Installed RedHat 6.2 and the NIC was unsupported. So I bought a
NetGear FA-311. But the NetGear website said to download their module
in lieu of using tulip.o. I downloaded the module.

All of the following was done while logged in as "root".

The make process worked for generating fa311.o as instructed by
NetGear, but the make install did not (I don't know enough to
understand what "installing" a module is). So I copied the fa311.o
module to /lib/modules/2.2.14-5/net directory.

The fa311.o option does not show up in LinuxConfig - Networking -
Client tasks - Basic host info - kernel module. I first tried just
typing in fa311.o in this box.

Everything saved okay, but when I brought up the network interface, I
still got the "Determing IP info... Operation Failed" message.

So I've tried the following:

sh /etc/rc.d/init.d/network stop insmod fa311.o
[console responds that the module is loaded]
sh /etc/rc.d/init.d/network start
[console responds "Determining IP info... Operation failed"

I get the same when I enter ifup eth0.

HARDWARE:
==========

The station is an HP Pavillion, Pentium 120.
The NetGear FA-311 NIC is plugged into a LinkSys Ethernet Cable/DSL
router, which goes to RoadRunner cable internet access, which provides
dynamic (DHCP) IP addressing (I've got service for one IP dynamically
granted IP address). This is the 2nd computer on this device, but the
router is itself a DHCP server and ought to support multiple devices.
I've looked very closely at the router's setup and I don't believe
this is the cause of the problem. Also, I see no flickering of lights
on the router when the Linux station tries to bring up the interface.
Additionally, I've tried it with the other station disconnected and
the router reset.

###

[Mike Perry]

Perhaps try somewhat manually first. I am no big believer in linuxconf
since I have seen it crash more than work. When you load fa311.o with
insmod and then do a lsmod do you see it? How about printing out the result
of an lsmod? Next with the module loaded trying manually doing, "ifconfig
eth0 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0" and see what happens. If this works
manually, I would rather use the netcfg program to assign the eth0 resources
or do it all manually. There are files in /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts
which do the network stuff. One is ifcfg-eth0. The other place to ensure
that you touch is /etc/modules.conf (or perhaps /etc/conf.modules). There
should be an alias line which says "alias eth0 fa311.o" I use suse here and
yast puts in that line to bring up ethernet services when I boot the system.

I don't use the network card you have though. I use intel etherexpress
pro 100's or 3com's most of the time.

--
Michael Perry
mpe...@tsoft.com
------------------

[Mark Hicks]

Thanks Michael,

Here's what happens:

lsmod returns:

Module
fa311

Size
4684

Used By
0 (autoclean) unused

insmod return:

Using /lib/modules/2.2.14-5/net/fa311.o

After doing insmod, a ifconfig -a returns showing the eth0 and the lo
items loaded, and the NIC's hardware id is given. The lo item has an
IP address of 127.0.0.1

Doing ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 returns:

SIOCSIFFLAGS: Resource temporarily unavailable

This is rocket science to me. Any help would be apprecaited.

[Mike Perry]

On Tue, 27 Feb 2001 12:29:32 GMT, Mark Hicks <mhi...@bizmark.com> wrote:
>Thanks Michael,
>
>Here's what happens:
>
>lsmod returns:
>
>Module
>fa311
>
>Size
>4684
>
>Used By
>0 (autoclean) unused
>
>
>insmod return:
>
>Using /lib/modules/2.2.14-5/net/fa311.o
>
>After doing insmod, a ifconfig -a returns showing the eth0 and the lo
>items loaded, and the NIC's hardware id is given. The lo item has an
>IP address of 127.0.0.1
>
>Doing ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 returns:
>
>SIOCSIFFLAGS: Resource temporarily unavailable
>
>This is rocket science to me. Any help would be apprecaited.
>
>
>

Hmmm. Is this a pci or isa card? Can you look at /proc/interrupts and see
if you see the card claiming an interrupt? If its an isa card, you may have
to manually pass some parameters to it. Usually pci cards can manage the
interrupts; but I have seen irq clashing between two neighboring cards that
would not play nice sharing an irq.

Sorry I do not have the final answer yet. But I think if we can narrow down
some hardware issues we may get there soon.

[Mark Hicks]

>Hmmm. Is this a pci or isa card? Can you look at /proc/interrupts and see
>if you see the card claiming an interrupt? If its an isa card, you may have

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Yes proc/interrupts clearly showed
that the card was not appearing.

The trick was turning off Plug And Play. I don't know enough about
Red Hat 6.2 to know if it's a PNP operating system, but turning it off
got the eth0 interface loaded.

Thanks again.

[Va Thao]

You are looking for this:

http://www.scyld.com/network/ethercard.html

# Transfer the Scyld PCI Netdriver package
rpm -i ftp://ftp.scyld.com/pub/network/netdriver-2.1.src.rpm
# Build the binary version for your kernel
cd /usr/src/{redhat,TurboLinux}/
rpm -bb SPECS/netdriver.spec
# Now install it your newly built package.
rpm -i --force RPMS/i386/netdriver-2.1-*.i386.rpm