RE: DSL HELP!!


Subject: RE: DSL HELP!!
From: Jamin "W." Collins (jcollins@asgardsrealm.net)
Date: Wed Jun 20 2001 - 13:45:07 MDT


On 20 Jun 2001 14:42:12 -0400, Ruprecht, Chris wrote:
> > I have DSL through SWBell. The IP address is not fixed. The
>
> SW Bell is pretty useless, but better than no DSL at all - but these are
> just my personal feelings towards them. As far as I'm concerned, they
> fall into the same category as Micro$oft.
Irrelevant to the problem. Your personal feelings regarding one company
or the other has little to nothing to do with helping to correct the
current problem.

> > DSL modem is
> > hooked up via my ethernet port. I have YDL 2.0 and am using the KDE
> > environment.
>
> you do not KDE to do networking - it just makes things more confused.
This was not what was indicated in the post. Nowhere did I take the
statement about "using the KDE environment" to indicate that it was used
for networking. It is simply a statement indicating that KDE was in
use. As each desktop environment is different, this could conceivably
be useful information.
 
> you don't need all that stuff.
> all you need to do is:
>
> netconfig
>
> then you select [*] DHCP and don't type in any of the IP addresses (it
> will not let you anyway.
>
> Then, check /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0, it should look
> like this:
> DEVICE=eth0
> ONBOOT=yes
> BOOTPROTO=dhcp
> IPADDR=""
>
> If one of these lines is missing: ADD IT!
>
> Then, a reboot is quite in order. It should bring up eth0 ... [OK] when
> it starts.
Please lets not advise reboots for simple changes. A reboot is not
"quite in order" after a change like this. In all honesty, the only
time a reboot is necessary (to my knowledge) is when the system hard
locks (very rare) or you've installed a new kernel.

To activate your new configuration, one of the following should work
just fine (without requiring a reboot):

- as root "service network restart". This does just what it says,
restarts the network service which includes all your network interfaces)
- as root "ifdown eth0" followed by "ifup eth0". The first, takes the
eth0 interface down and may not be a needed step. The second, brings
the eth0 interface back up using the new configuration.

> Then, type in 'ping www.apple.com'
>
> if that works, you're done.
Not a solid test (there are many circumstances in which this can fail
and everything still be confirgured properly). A better test of this
would be to run "ifconfig" and see if you have an IP address for the
specified interface (in our examples this would be eth0). This will
indicate whether your system was able to lease an IP from your ISP's
DHCP server. Once this has been verified moving on to name resolution
and traffic tests would be advisable.

> > What this means I have no idea!
>
> just forget it.
Woah, a user gets error messages and it's suggested to "just forget it".
It is much better to explain what the messages mean rather than just
brush them aside. Inform the user.

Jamin W. Collins



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