# Network not starting

## Spow

I read the other posts about the network at startup and I've tried them all, still getting the "Netmount was not started" error in Runlevel 3.  

My network card shows up under ifconfig -a, so the module is loading correctly I think, and dhcpcd worked when I booted off the cd,  any other solutions I can try?

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## mb

hi,

does ifconfig shows an ip address ?? you say you are using dhcp.. do you have entered iface_eth0="dhcp" in /etc/conf.d/net ??

btw: netmount brings up your network mounts (like nfs) and relies on the net.* scripts

#mb

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## Spow

Yup, ifconfig shows darn near exactly the same thing that it did when I booted off the CD during install.

I noticed if I went back and booted off the CD, I can get the network to function perfectly.  When booting from my custom kernel, I can't even ping 192.168.1.1 (my router).  My ethernet module is natsemi.o, and it gets loaded.  

I never even messed with trying to mount any network shares, should netmount even be running??

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## mb

hm... can you post the output of ipconfig eth0 ??

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## klieber

 *Spow wrote:*   

> When booting from my custom kernel, I can't even ping 192.168.1.1 (my router)

 

Are you able to ping your loopback address? (127.0.0.1)  If yes, then your ethernet card is loaded and functioning correctly.  If not, then you've got a problem either with the TCP/IP stack or with the NIC module in the kernel.

If you *can* ping the loopback address, but can't ping your router, then you've got a problem with your routing table.  (most likely forgot to set a default route)  Do a "route -n" and post the results here and we can take a look at it.

--kurt

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## Spow

hehehe, I can ping the loopback, and route -n shows :

Kernel IP routing table

Destination    Gateway       Genmask     Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface

and that's it.  Apparently I forgot to do SOMETHING.  How do I do this?

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## klieber

 *Spow wrote:*   

> Apparently I forgot to do SOMETHING.

 

Check the install guide and look for code listing 5.  That should describe how to add a default route.

--kurt

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## Spow

Will do, I thought the dhcpcd program did all of that for you?

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## klieber

 *Spow wrote:*   

> Will do, I thought the dhcpcd program did all of that for you?

 

oh yeah -- I forgot you're using DHCP.  It might do that (or it might be supposed to do that.  :Smile: )  I'm not sure -- I don't use DHCP.  However, if your routing table comes up blank, then that's definitely the source of your problem -- you have to have some sort of default route for your TCP/IP stack to know where to send packets.  (you're not using PPP or PPPoE, are you?)

I'll let someone else more knowledgable about dhcp pick up this thread.

--kurt

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## mb

right, dhcp will insert a correct def. gateway, if this information is  transmitted via dhcp...

it seems you have no dhcp client running....

check /etc/conf.d/net for the line:

iface_eth0="dhcp" (and uncomment it if needed)

#mb

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## Spow

Ok, edited the net file for eth0, everything appears on startup to be ok, but I still can't ping the darned router or any other IP except for loopback.  route -n shows:

Destination     Gateway     Genmask     Flags     Metric    Ref  Use  Iface

192.168.1.0    0.0.0.0        255.255.255.0 U        0          0      0     eth0

0.0.0.0          192.16.1.1    0.0.0.0         UG        1          0      0    eth0

I'm pretty sure it's not my LAN or router, the 2 other windows machines on it work fine. BTW my router is the 192.168.1.1  

Thanks for all the suggestions guys!

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## mb

hmm.. route is ok...

can u plz post the output of ifconfig ???

do you get any response from ping ??? (i mean errors)

#mb

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## klieber

 *Spow wrote:*   

> route -n shows:
> 
> Destination     Gateway     Genmask     Flags     Metric    Ref  Use  Iface
> 
> 192.168.1.0    0.0.0.0        255.255.255.0 U        0          0      0     eth0
> ...

 

If that's really what route -n shows (and not just a typo) then there's your problem.  That line should be 192.168.1.1.  

Assuming it's just a typo, then please post the output of ifconfig -a as mb mentioned.  

Also, you might try setting up a static IP address, just to see if that works.  The install guide shows you what you need to do -- pretty painless, all things considered.  Might be worth a try to see if you can get things going.

--kurt

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## funsize

I am having the same (or at least similar) issues with the natsemi driver.

My NIC works under the rescue kernel on the CD, but not the kernel I compiled to boot the system.

I've checked that the module is loading (lsmod, ifconfig) and it seems to be.  I can ping 127.0.0.1.

My default gateway is set in "route" to my local 192.168.1.3, but when booting from the boot kernel, I get "no route to host" or such when trying to ping other machines.

Tried compiling the driver into the kernel directly (not as a module) but then the kernel didn't recognize the card at all.

I noticed the following error in DMESG:

ds: no socket drivers loaded!

which appears when the kernel loads the natsemi module.

what could be causing this?  What does it mean exactly?

Anyone?

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## klieber

 *funsize wrote:*   

> what could be causing this?

 

Please post the output of:

```
ifconfig -a
```

and

```
route -n
```

--kurt

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## funsize

will post this afternoon or evening

Thanks for the quick reply.

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## funsize

ifconfig -a

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:A0:CC:A2:67:17  

          inet addr:192.168.1.20  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0

          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:3471 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:9 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 

          RX bytes:275316 (268.8 Kb)  TX bytes:378 (378.0 b)

          Interrupt:10 Base address:0xe000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  

          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0

          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1

          RX packets:9 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

          TX packets:9 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

           RX bytes:1008 (1008.0 b)  TX bytes:1008 (1008.0 b)

route -n

Kernel IP routing table

Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface

192.168.1.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0

0.0.0.0         192.168.1.3     0.0.0.0         UG    1      0        0 eth0

also I noticed that when booting from the 1.1a CD rescue kernel the base address for the NIc is "Base address:0xa000" rather than "0xe000"

any clues?

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## klieber

 *funsize wrote:*   

> any clues?

 

Actually, no.  Your NIC looks to be working correctly and your routing table looks equally correct.  Are you sure that your default gateway is 192.168.1.3?

The base address thing is odd, and while I don't think that's the cause of the problem, it seems to be the only difference between a working NIC and a non-working NIC.

So, try changing the base address -- you can do this in a couple ways:

```
ifconfig $IFACE $IPNUM broadcast $BCAST netmask $NMASK io_addr 0xA000
```

(obviously, replace $IFACE, etc. with the correct values)

or, using insmod; 

```
insmod natsemi io=0xA000
```

Finally, try searching Google.  There seems to be a lot of discussion around TCP/IP problems with that driver, so you may be having a driver issue.

hth

--kurt

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## funsize

thx

will try changing the io addr tonight, am not home right now so will have to be later...

what about the message:

ds: no socket drivers loaded! 

in dmesg

I found a mail from Linus T in a mailing list archive somewhere that indicated that this means that there are no "low-level drivers" loaded, but it was in relation to a PCMCIA NIC

I  checked and I do NOT have any PCMCIA support compiled into my kernel.

Any idea what this means in this case?

also, I spent an inordinate amount of time searching Google today already and came up with not much...  :Sad: 

...but I'll keep looking.

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## funsize

OK, so I tried changing the IO address and completely failed to do so

using IFconfig:

io_addr: SIOCSIFMAP: Operation not supported.

using modprobe with io variable, modprobe failed to load the module

it has to be something in my kernel config, since everything works fine with the rescue kernel on the CD, the question is "What?"

What options are used to build the rescue kernel?

What kernel source?

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## funsize

from a ML archive:

You cannot change the I/O address and IRQ with PCI cards.

(Where does the documentation suggest that you can?)

Donald Becker becker@scyld.com 

and he should know!

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## mb

hmm... ask the developer, who did the kernel and ask for the config and use his | compare.....

#mb

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## funsize

OK, here we go again...

I disabled my sound shipset in the BIOS, and the IO_ADDR is now the same in ifconfig and dmesg...

still doesn't work

I made sure that ACPI was disabled in the kernel and the BIOS, as that worked for another member of our forum, who was using a different NIC

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=2155

still doesn't work

tried copying the rescue kernel to the HDD and booting it that way, but the rest of my machine completely freaked, and it wouldn't load the driver at all...

still doesn't work

from the mailing list, Martin Schlemmer suggested clearing out /lib/dev-state/* and rebooting, which got rid of some supposedly harmless errors in dmesg, but...

still doesn't work

checked kernel config and though I didn't have PCMCIA, hotplug support was still in there, so chucked it...which got rid of errors

ds: no socket driver loaded!

still doesn't work

so I started stripping down the kernel, removed scsi, dri, usb, hotplug, all power mgmt, and...

still doesn't work

so now I'm still at the same point functionally, but have no more errors in dmesg, fixed a (minor?) discrepancy showing up in ifconfig, and have a much smaller kernel

I'm stumped...

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## funsize

OK, this is interesting...

http://list.ftech.net/pipermail/gllug/2002-February/019954.html

seems that some 311s had faulty/poorly designed NatSemi chips...

locked up one guys machine...

caused errors on another...

but then why would the NIC wokr when booting from CD?

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## ManicMailman

im having the exact same problem. it works from the install cd and also under the old gentoo versions.

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## dee

 *ManicMailman wrote:*   

> im having the exact same problem. it works from the install cd and also under the old gentoo versions.

 

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## Kumnaa

i am having exactly the same problem with natsemi compiled into the kernel and have tried several of the same things to try n fix it Has anybody tried using the kernel from kernel.org instead of the gentoo ones ?

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## snick

Im also having this exact same problem.

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## echto

I had the same problem with natsemi not loading at boot as well.  My work around was to compile it as a module rather than having it built in.   Strange.

echto

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