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gr1zzly

Hi, I'm having trouble connecting my PCI NIC card to my (wired) router [Linux Mint 10] -- it's a Realtek based chipset (r8169).

'ifconfig' shows eth0 device up and configured (static IP) -- I have manually set this config in '/etc/network/interfaces'

however the 'route' table was empty until i restarted the networking service, then it lists:

Mayhem · Joined: Tue Apr 10, 2012 10:12 pm Posts: 11

Why the static IP ? Did the nic stop working when you changed to static IP, or has it never worked ? Generally I find Ubuntu derivatives to be pretty good at setting up nics out the box, (without static IPs and via network manager) hence the question

As far as I know, netstat --tcp would show any connections to the box via tcp. So I'm guessing you where sitting in front of the box (not SSH'd in etc), hence no connections ?

I think more info is required:
* "ifconfig -a" output
* "route -n" output
* /etc/network/interfaces contents.

gr1zzly · Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 2:59 pm Post subject:

I want to use the box for web development so it made sense for me to set a static IP in-case I need to use it as a server later on for remote access (as you mentioned).

I switched to the ethernet card after the on-board one blew up -- at least I figure it's dead anyway, see post here for details:
http://www.linuxformat.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=14723

As I said in my OP ifconfig shows the device is up
lshw and lspci show the device detected and driver loaded.
Everything seems it's as it should be except for the fact that there are no active network services for my NIC's IP, no tcp listeners, so no ports are open or bound to that device??!!

- terminal output:

nelz · Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 3:59 pm Post subject:

Are you sure the new card is eth0? That would have been taken by the onboard NIC and even if it is completely dead and tirned off in the BIOS, udev may be assigning a different name to this NIC because it has a different MAC address. What does ifconfig -a show?
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wyliecoyoteuk · Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 5:01 pm Post subject:

169.254.0.0 is an "autoconfig" IP subnet address, self assigned by a NIC when it has no static address and it cannot connect to a DHCP server.
It can also be defined as the default route: the metric of 1000 indicates that it should be used only if the main gateway is non functional.

You also have a MAC address error.

What you may have is an auto-negotiation failure, often caused by non-gigabit compliant cabling or incompatible network devices.
changing the speed to 100 Mbit and then restarting the router may cure it, if it does, your cable may be to blame.

EDIT: maybe the spelling of newtwork doesn't help! Smile

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gr1zzly · Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 6:16 pm Post subject:

@nelz - If you check my dmesg output from before you can see that the device using the r8169 driver (i.e. my RealTek card) is assigned to eth0.

@wyliecoyoteuk - I have tested the cable in another computer so it's definitely not that, however you could be right about the gigabit / 100mbit setup if the auto-negotiate / auto-sense isn't working.

AFAIK the cable is a standard CAT5 shielded twisted pair / cross-over cable. But (also AFAIK) modern routers are happy with both straight patch cables and cross-over cables, they just flip the connections internally so it shouldn't matter which type I've got. (right ?)

Er.. I can re-define the adapter's connection speed with ifconfig right? Or should I do it in the 'interfaces' file?
-- edit: It's okay I've found it -- 'media' attribute in the interfaces file now set to '100baseT'!

Also what's the problem with the MAC address?

The NetworkManager kept trying to set the default address of 'ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff' but the sticker on the back of the card says it's MAC address is '00:1F:1F:E9:C9:1B' so that's what I set it as in the config! -- Is this wrong?

Thanks, I really appreciate the help!

nelz · Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 7:50 pm Post subject:

Cat 5 is rated for 100Mbit. You should be using Cat 5e or Cat 6 for gigabit connections.
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wyliecoyoteuk · Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 8:22 pm Post subject:

gr1zzly · Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 8:48 pm Post subject:

@nelz - Okay thanks, I will check...

also (@wileycoyoteuk) thanks for the detailed cable spec info...

My cable is a Category 5 UTP 4 Pairs 24AWG Patch Cable (I guess I'd remebered it wrong -- though it was a cross-over cable!)

Okay I've corrected my typo in the interfaces file (apologies) however this line was previously commented out as it's only required for an older kernel verison (Linux Mint 10 installs with kernel 2.6.35-22) so I doubt it's the main cause of the problem but at least now it isn't a contributing factor.

FYI: before my problems with this RealTek card I lost my on-board ethernet functionality after having performed an 'update' and an 'upgrade' using 'apt-get' (this is where all my troubles started!!).

So in my '/usr/src/' folder, as well as my 2.6.35-22 headers, I now also have a folder called 'linux-3.2.11' -- is this part of the problem and if so how do I fix it please? ... if not then...

I still have no tcp listeners showing with netsat

How can I set the correct media type for eth0?
(i.e. 100baseT if that's what I should be using?)

Thanks for all your help so far, I'm determined to get this working before the end of today! (or maybe the week)

wyliecoyoteuk · Posted: Wed Apr 11, 2012 8:54 pm Post subject:

To be honest, I think that you should start over.
Shut down, remove the PCI card, boot up and have a look at dmesg, to see if there is any trace of the onboard NIC.
If possible, disable it in the BIOS.

Then reinstall your PCI card and see what happens.

Sometimes these cards need firmware updates, which are usually supplied by the driver, and that might be the cause of your original problem, the new driver could not install the new firmware. (although that is usually more common with wifi cards)
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dandnsmith · Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 9:13 am Post subject:

I have one PC for which the onboard ethernet port went U/S, so I installed a PCI card with a Realtek chip.
When the dust died down I found that
a) the original port was still being registered, but wouldn't (still) take traffic and couldn't be disabled at the BIOS level
b) when I achieved a working configuration, the new port was listed as eth0 by the Ubuntu/Mint
c) I had problems with the connection just going to sleep and being almost impossible to wake up to use (but it seemed to work under WinXP).

After a bit of research, I found that I was using the r8169 driver, but that chipset had given trouble and using the r8168 driver instead cleared everything up. This isn't the only hardware for which I had this problem and solution.
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gr1zzly · Posted: Thu Apr 12, 2012 3:07 pm Post subject:

Thanks all, I'm really busy so I'll give those suggestions a try when I can and post back here in a few days with a progress update.

Kind regards,

Very Happy