Debian: eth0 doesn't like me...

[Elric of Grans]

G'Day,

I switched from RedHat to Debian a few months ago, and have been going through the obvious confusion of everything being done differently. The last thing I need to do for my system to be back where it was before I made the switch is to get this system back on the LAN. Well, redhat-config-network doesn't exist (funny that :p ), so I'm currently fumbling through doing things the Debian way. I've activated the network things I need in kernel, have installed dhcpd and dhclient3. When I ran dhclient3, it couldn't get a lease though. Little wonder when it was trying to get a lease via lo rather than eth0!

I'm on a dhcp network, but have a static IP on it, so I set up /etc/network/interfaces like this:

# The loopback interface
# Interfaces that comes with Debian Potato does not like to see
# "auto" option before "iface" for the first device specified.
iface lo inet loopback

#iface eth0 inet static
# address 130.194.219.18
# netmask 255.255.255.0
# network 130.194.219.0
# broadcast 130.194.219.255

auto lo #eth0

I commented out the eth0 bits when, after doing /etc/init.d/network restart returned the following:

/etc/init.d/networking restart
Reconfiguring network interfaces: SIOCSIFADDR: No such device
eth0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
SIOCSIFNETMASK: No such device
SIOCSIFBRDADDR: No such device
eth0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
eth0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
done.

Obviously I've skipped a step, but I'm not sure what, or where. I've tried looking about a bit, but have not had much success. I'm running a 2.4.22 kernel (yeah, I'd update it, but I need this working to get online), with Woody. My ethernet is on-board (I have a GA-8PE667). Sorry if I've missed out any information: I was not sure what else would be useful here.

Thanks.

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by Elric of Grans

/etc/init.d/networking restart
Reconfiguring network interfaces: SIOCSIFADDR: No such device
eth0: ERROR while getting interface flags: No such device
SIOCSIFNETMASK: No such device
SIOCSIFBRDADDR: No such device


It could be eth0 'doesn't like you' ( :rolleyes: ) as you have failed to disable PnP OS in the bios.

[coldy]

If you want to bring up interface eth0 uncomment these lines
#iface eth0 inet static
# address 130.194.219.18
# netmask 255.255.255.0
# network 130.194.219.0
# broadcast 130.194.219.255 and move over them auto lo after than try "ifup eth0"

[Elric of Grans]

G'Day,

I checked BIOS, but I did not see anything like that: perhaps my BIOS version is a little old or something? Anywho, if it's not there, it cannot be enabled, therefore I don't need to diable it ;)

I've added to /etc/network/interfaces as suggested:

# The loopback interface
# Interfaces that comes with Debian Potato does not like to see
# "auto" option before "iface" for the first device specified.
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth0 inet static
address 130.194.219.18
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 130.194.219.0
broadcast 130.194.219.255

auto lo

ifup eth0

And now get the following output when I /etc/init.d/networking restart:

# /etc/init.d/networking restart
Reconfiguring network interfaces: /etc/network/interfaces:14: misplaced option
ifdown: couldn't read interfaces file "/etc/network/interfaces"
/etc/network/interfaces:14: misplaced option
ifup: couldn't read interfaces file "/etc/network/interfaces"
done.

I checked, and /etc/network/interfaces was already available for all users to read, so I'm not sure why it cannot read it - or perhaps I'm misreading the error. Line 14 is the `ifup eth0' line though. I'm guessing my mistake now is something simple (and stupid).

Thanks for the help so far though!

[mdwatts]

I do not have Debian installed (yet) nor do I have /etc/network/interfaces.

See if you can find examples in these G4L search results for 'debian /etc/network/interfaces' (http://www.google.com/linux?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=debian+%2Fetc%2Fnetwork%2Finterfaces&btnG=Google+Search). Apparently you should also have a manpage for interfaces (man interfaces) which may help you to check the proper syntax to use.

[Elric of Grans]

G'Day,

Heh, I read the man page and now realise that ifup is NOT a line for the file, but a command. Oops ;)

When I use the ifup command, it says that eth0 is already configured. Also, from what I read in the man page, I believe I have my settings correct. However, I still get those errors, and dhclient3 still tries to use lo rather than eth0 - I would imagine the former will be corrected by correcting the latter.

[sharth]

sharth@mini-sharth:~$ more /etc/network/interfaces
# /etc/network/interfaces -- configuration file for ifup(8), ifdown(8)

# The loopback interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The first network card - this entry was created during the Debian installation
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
name Ethernet LAN card

sharth@mini-sharth:~$

make sure that lspci is showing your nic.

[Elric of Grans]

G'Day,

I ran lspci and got the following:

:~# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 2560 (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 2561 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 24c2 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 24c4 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 24c7 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 24cd (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82820 820 (Camino 2) Chipset PCI (rev 82)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 24c0 (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 24cb (rev 02)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 24c3 (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 24c5 (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation NV11 (GeForce2 MX) (rev b2)
02:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corp.: Unknown device 103a (rev 82)

[Elric of Grans]

G'Day,

Just adding that I decided to try looking for the right driver and getting an update of it (before I had just selected them all). Took a bit, but I eventually found it, and it works fine now. Well, Firebird seems to crash whenever I check my webmail, but that seems a separate issue ;)

[sharth]

# temporary mozilla firefox
deb http://people.debian.org/~eric/debian/$(ARCH) ./


you can add that to your sources.list if you want. its a debian reposit for mozilla-firefox (which is propagating to sarge eventually). The profiles are not compatible (automatically), although if you look at the bug reports for it, you should find what you need to do to the profile to make it work.

enjoy :) (and sorry I didn't get back sooner, but just to see if my inkling was right, was the driver eepro?)