activating network connection in linux

Hi all,

I've just installed redhat linux 7.3 and everything is good so far except my network connection. When I use the wizard to activate it gives me an error 'cannot activate' but no reason. Using the wizard I can see the device Eth0 and under the hardware tab it seems to recognize the card 'Intel EtherExpress 100B'. Anyone help me out here?
Mace

screw the wizard:D .

first off, how are you connected to the internet? is your network card plugged right into the cable or dsl modem? or are you using a router. if you are using a router do you have a dhcp server running? do you want to use a static or dynamic ip?

if it detects your card already and the driver for it is loaded than getting you on the net shouldnt be a problem...(hopefully).

take a look here also.

Thanks for your quick response! I've been to the link and I'll read through when I have a bit more time. To reply to your first questions I'm not using the card to access the internet but to set up a home network. I have a seperate modem which I actually got working! ( you may have guessed by now that I'm new to this!). I've made a direct connection to my PC which is running win2k. When the wizard was trying to activate I saw on my PC that a connection was established but then the error comes up and the connection is lost. Also on boot the system tries to activate the eth0 but fails. Seem strange to me as it recognizes the hardware. Hope this is enough info for you to figure it out!

Mace

I also had the same problem when I tried to activate a network interface in RH 7.3. Recognized but failed to activate. Finally got it to work by upgrading to a newer version of RH. I think your case is similar (or you may upgrade the kernel manually, if you like).

Possibly you should try Fedora instead.

Sorry this took so long but now I've upgraded the kenel but didn't help. I put in a fixed IP address and this works. At least I can activate the card but when I tried an FTP transfer I couldn't connect. Are there somewhere protocols to set-up or do I have to de-activate some security setting?

Thanks in advance.

Mace

ok so your connected to a router? with the static ip you assigned via ifconfig, can you ping your router? you would do this by typing:
ping router's ip address

where of course router's ip address would be something like 192.168.1.1

if you have a dhcp server running on your network, getting you machine to use a dynamic ip address should be as simple as creating a file called dhclient.conf in the /etc/ directory. do that with the command:
touch /etc/dhclient.conf

leave it empty, your computer should then automatically get an ip address from the dhcp server.

i still dont know what your network set up is however. you have a network card in your computer, what is that connected to? a router? a modem? another computer? we still need some more info in order to help you.

I had this problem back when I was running red hat 7.3 . I worked at it a lot and no matter what it did it refused to activate eth0 for the home network. This problem was very common among the people I knew who were running 7.3. When I upgraded to 8.0 the problem had been rectified. Even though it should not have been a problem, for some reason 7.3 had odd quirks when run on a dual boot with windows, but when it was running on the box by itself it didnt experience any problems. For me, the inability to activate eth0 on a home network was one of those problems. I wish I had an easier answer for you but I am at a loss, I would suggest upgrading to Fedora Core 1.

Ok, I have the workstation with Redhat on connected directly to my PC running w2k. I don't need a special connection, I just need to be able to ftp files back and forth. The workstation is dual bootable the other OS being w2k again. The connection when both computers are running w2k is fine, I've mapped the partion as a network drive. When it is booted into redhat the eth0 will only go active when I fix the IP address and although the Connection icon appears on my w2k computer I cannot make an ftp connection as it tells me there is an error( although not what the error is!). I set the IP address on the w2k computer to see if this would help but get the same problem. I've just used the command prompt to ping the workstation and this appears to function just fine. I then ftp'd to the same address and the message says connection refused. Same when I use the console to ping the w2k computer. There must be some setting I haven't yet activated or some sort of permission I have to set but that's all I can tell you

As said, try upgrade to a more recent of Red Hat. There seems to be a consensus that RH 7.3 does not properly support some newer interface cards. I think your problem should then go away by upgrading. I fixed my problem this way.

No, there isn't any other special configuration quirks needed I know of. If the network interface is supported, then it should be able to be activated right away and no extra tweaks needed.

Of course, it is a good idea to disable your firewall before doing your tests.

hello all,
I also have a problem with network connection on Linux..

I just installed Fedora Core 3. and I am trying to connect to my computer on command prompt like :
$ telnet mycomputer_name
Trying xxx.xxx.x.xxx...
telnet: connect to address xxx.xxx.x.xxx: Connection refused
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

And I am getting the above message back... But ssh works fine. How can anyone on the same LAN connect to my linux box by typing "telnet" on their command prompt(or whatever)?

Telnet is an insecure means of logging into your box. It is disabled for security reasons. If SSH works for you, then you should just use it. If there are any reasons why you need to use Telnet and SSH does not work for you, then consider the security risks involved in using Telnet over the limitations; if any, of SSH in your decision.

If you must enable Telnet, enable it in your /etc/inetd.conf file.
Read through the manual; man telnet

thanks for your reply locustfurnace, but there's no inetd.conf file in the system(in Fedora).

I am having the same problem in Windows OS, too. No one in our LAN can can connect to my computer using telnet from their computer. Even I can't telnet to my computer from my computer. The reason I am asking telnet is, because MS-Dos does not support ssh command. I found inetd.conf in Windows(using cygwin) but I don't really know what to do inside that file.

Hi to all, I have a simmilar problem like Mace had, so i have installed a Slackware 9.0 distribution on one PC.I have win2k on a second PC, and i connect to the internet wia dsl with the computer running with win2k.I want to enable the slackware machine to connect to the internet through the win2k PC.I've enabled the sharing option in windows so that there actually such a connection can be made, but on the slackware PC i still don't have internet.It has a local network, when i ping to the win2k PC everything is ok, the eth connection is also ok but the slackware PC cannot get out from the local network to the internet.I'm not really sure what to do next, in windows the local area connection is with static IP 192.168.0.1 because it needs this address to share the internet connection.I've tried with different addresses on the linux machin but no success, it just stays in the local network behind the win2k PC.Can someone help me?thanks