Mandrake 8.2 Cable Modem dropping signal.

[aphryo]

I have two machines. Mandrake 8.2 on one and Windows 98 on the Emachine.

Mandrake Automatically detects my cable modem when I plug it in after it's booted. But when I reboot it no longer finds it until I unplug and replug it in.

Then internet connection sharing is on and it works flawlessly. But it seems that Mandrake just drops the connection every so often and I have to run dhclient from the command line to get it pumping again. Any ideas on where to look or links to helpful internet connection sharing on linux/mandrake sites or tutorials you know of. I'm having a hard time finding solutions.

[DMR]

Hmm,

You wording is a little unclear as to your network setup; a couple of specifics would help:

-which box is the one connected to theInternet?
-how are the boxes networked together?
-who is your isp?
-if you're networked via ethernet cards, what is the make/model of card in the Linux box?

Just a few things to give us more to go on...

:)

[aphryo]

Toshiba Cable modem hooked via USB to Mandrake 8.2
Cox Cable Internet Service
RealTek 10/100 PCI Ethernet card on the Linux Machine. Kingston 10/100 PCI Ethernet on the Emachine.

The two machines are connected via a Neatgear FS105 5 port Ethernet switch.

Her ex-roommate had a Windows ME box connected to the internet before and had it setup through internet connection sharing and it worked fine then. But Mandrake machine seems to just drop the signal and I have to run dhclient as I said before to reestablish a connection.

[Pvt. Kernel]

My first piece of advice is to loose the USB connection. USB is wonderful for many, many things, but networking is NOT one of them. If the cable modem has an Ethernet connector (RJ45) slap a 2nd NIC in your Mandrake box and use ipchains or (better) iptables to enable IP masquerading and IP forwarding.