# "failed to bring eth0 up" with my 3com 3c556 &

## jacksonscottsly

alrighty, I've got a dell c600 laptop with nic 3com 556 ethernet, and a self-compiled 2.6 kernel, but after installing the whole sha-bang (gentoo) and rebooting, i get a "failed to bring up eth0" / "netmask not started" or similar error.  I compiled my kernel (2.6.3) with the 3c95x module -- which should do the trick, but after recompile (and reboot), i still get the same thing.  Formerly, I had gentoo on this same laptop (with the same ethernet device) and I had no problems, but I'd used genkernel and the 2.4.x kernel series then (and genkernel don't seem to be doing it's thing properly with the 2.6.x kernels, so I'm doing this manually).  

Anyway, any help?  thanks.

p.s.  /etc/conf.d/net is set to iface="dhcp"  because i use dhcp (which worked fine with my old gentoo installation)

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## DaMightyWhightyMan

I wonder if its related to my problems with the 2.6.2 kernel n nic card

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=137665

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## jacksonscottsly

perhaps, but unlike you, nothing shows up when i lsmod... and I've tried compiling it as both a module and as part of the kernel, by the way....

also, i tried adding 3c59x to /etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6, but i get an error on reboot that the module could not be loaded.

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## jacksonscottsly

one more thing...I tried `modprobe 3c59x` and got the following:

```
FATAL: Error inserting 3c59x (/lib/modules/2.6.3-rc-2-mm1/kernel/drivers/net/3c59x.ko):  Invalid module format
```

I've no clue what it means or if this is helpful, though

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## jacksonscottsly

ok, i tried the whole thing over with my gentoo-sources-2.4.22 kernel, and it worked, so this must be a problem with the mm-sources.

perhaps this is a bug with the mm-sources, but i could have messed something up i suppose, being kind of new to the whole process.

 the only thing that still troubles me is the fact that lsmod gives me nothing using my 2.6 kernel...so... perhaps the problem lies therein...any ideas, anyone?

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## sgarcia

I'm having a similar problem using a genkernel generated 2.6.1 kernel on my "new" Thinkpad T23 laptop.

Upon boot, I get the same 

```
failed to bring up eth0
```

 message, along with all the things that fail when the network doesn't come up.  

Yet when I try to bring the network up by hand (using either 'ifconfig' or 'dhcpcd'), it comes right up.  Obviously the hardware AND the kernel are working.  What could be causing the startup scripts to fail?

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## DaMightyWhightyMan

sgarcia: How did you add it in your runlevel?

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## sgarcia

 *Quote:*   

> How did you add it in your runlevel?

 

I used 

```
rc-update add net.eth0 default

```

However I think I've fixed it.  Just this moment.

I wanted DHCP for my laptop, normally I just use a fixed IP on other machines.  The old laptop used DHCP, but it appears that the config may have been changed since I set that up.

The default "dhcpcd_eth0" is set to "..." (yeah, it's commented out, but that's what it's set to in the config file.)  Turns out this is a hint to "put what you want to here" not a valid option itself.  dhcpcd was barfing (silently) on this.  I replaced this with "-d" (which the man page recommends) and all was well.

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## rookbluff

Hey dudes,

I too am having similar problem getting my system to use my ethernet device since I upgraded kernels from 2.4.x to gentoo-dev-sources-2.6.1.  I compiled the kernel manually and added what I thought was my ethernet device as a module.

Whenever I boot up my new 2.6.1 kernel I see the following message:

rc-scripts: Failed to bring eth0 up

rc-scripts: ERROR:  Problem starting needed services.

I wonder if I have to run rc-update again after compiling a new kernel or what?

I'm excited about running the new 2.6x kernel because it's noticeably faster and smooth as butter!

I'm still a gentoo rookie so I would appreciate any input anyone has on this. =)

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## rookbluff

Nevermind dudes,

I just simply added the name of my ethernet device module to the 

/etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-2.6 file and it works great!!

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