3c90x in Caldera 2.4

[bionik]

Im trying to setup a 3c90x NIC in Caldera 2.4 I downloaded the appropriate drivers from 3com and followed the readme till the end but when I do a modprobe 3c90x it still doesnt find the module. Thanks

[Dolda2000]

Have you really installed it properly? What exactly did you do, and what error did modprobe give you?

[bionik]

I went through the steps twice. modprobe doesnt give me an error. It looks like it worked but when I do an ifconfig the NIC is not there. It is the only NIC on the system and I know it works because I tested it in windows. I tried loading the 3c59x before I loaded the driver but it said it wasnt the correct card. I read somewhere that the 59x could also be used but it didnt work for me. So right now im stuck. Is there something I can check to make sure the driver is loaded correctly? Thanks

[l_Kriss]

try to:

ifconfig eth0 up

and see if that works

also, do a

lsmod

as root to see if the module is running. if modprobe doesn't give a error msg then everything should be fine..

[wassy121]

also try just "/sbin/ifconfig eth0" to see if it is recognized, just without an IP address associated with it.

[bionik]

After I did an ifconfig eth0 up

I did an ifconfig and it listed

[root@elabgw /root]# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:E0:B8:30:0D:AA
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:1 frame:0
TX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
Interrupt:9 Base address:0xdc00

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:3924 Metric:1
RX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

But then after I re-booted the machine only the loopback was listed with ifconfig. I rebooted it because I wanted to restart the network service so that it would pick up an IP from our DHCP server. I tried to do a service network restart but I guess Caldera doesnt recognize the service command like redhat, so I just rebooted.

[bionik]

Its using the 3c59x module, for some reason it doesnt find the 90x module.

lsmod gives...
3c59x size: 18664 and used by 1

I checked the ifcfg-eth0 and the correct network information is in there but I still cant access the internet. I also tried to re-set it up with netconfig, but I guess that utility isnt in Caldera either.

ifconfig only lists eth0 after I do a "ifconfig eth0 up" if I reboot

I added the line "alias eth0 3c59x" to the modules.conf file.
Also I added "3c59x" to the etc/modules/default file

But if I reboot it still goes away.

[Dolda2000]

The solution may be closer than you think. You see, when you invoke ifconfig without parameters, it will only list interfaces that are "up", ie. standing by to receive packages. When a NIC module is loaded, the interface will not be up; instead, it is waiting to be configured, ie. setting its IP address and so on.
Most distributions provide means to configure interfaces automatically upon boot, but since I've never used Caldera, I can't tell you which files to edit. If you look through the init scripts, you might find it, however.
As you can see on the ifconfig output you gave here, eth0 didn't have an IP address (lo, on the other hand, did). That means that eth0 is active, but since no IP address is bound to it, it won't be used for IP traffic, only for raw ethernet traffic (which virtually no programs use). To configure an IP address manually, use "ifconfig eth0 <addr>" (where <addr>, of course, should be substituted with the address you want to assign to it).
If anyone knows Caldera, you're free to give advice on how to configure this on boot.
Also, if you want it to be configured with DHCP, just use the DHCP client daemon that comes with Caldera (don't know which one that is, either; try pump, dhcpcd or dhclient).
Last, are you really sure that you had to download the drivers from 3Com? Most 3c??? cards are already supported in most distros.

[wassy121]

caldera uses the RedHat-ish /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 to set up the ethernet card. There might be a line in there to say "ONBOOT=no", change that to "ONBOOT=yes", or if the line doesn't exist add one saying "ONBOOT=yes". That should help You also might need to put in an ip address (in case of static IP address, i.e. not dhcp)

[bionik]

Ok this is what I got so far. When I setup the ifcfg-eht0 to a static ip and reboot the system eth0 shows up when I do an ifconfig and it displays the IP. But if I set DYNAMIC=dhcp then eth0 doesnt show up unless I do an ifconfig eth0 up. But when it comes up it doesnt list an ip like before. Here are the results I get setting up a static IP.

[root@elabgw /root]# ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:E0:B8:30:0D:AA
inet addr:10.17.11.107 Bcast:10.17.11.255 Mask:255.255.252.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
Interrupt:9 Base address:0xdc00

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:3924 Metric:1
RX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

This is how I setup ifcfg-eth0

[root@elabgw /root]# cat /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
#!/bin/sh
#>>>Device type: loopback
#>>>Variable declarations:
DEVICE=eth0
IPADDR=10.17.11.107
NETMASK=255.255.252.0
NETWORK=10.17.10.0
BROADCAST=10.17.11.255
GATEWAY=10.17.8.10
ONBOOT=yes
BASIC=yes
DYNAMIC=
#>>>End variable declarations

I also tried the three commands that were listed above. pump was not a known command. This is what I got for the others....

[root@elabgw /root]# dhcpcd
[root@elabgw /root]#
[root@elabgw /root]# dhclient
Internet Software Consortium DHCP Client 2.0b1pl29
Copyright 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 The Internet Software Consortium.
All rights reserved.

Please contribute if you find this software useful.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/dhcp-contrib.html

/tmp/dcsw8IDIn: /etc/dhclient-script: No such file or directory
/tmp/dcsqAwj3B: /etc/dhclient-script: No such file or directory
Listening on LPF/eth0/00:e0:b8:30:0d:aa
Sending on LPF/eth0/00:e0:b8:30:0d:aa
Listening on LPF/lo/<null>
Sending on LPF/lo/<null>
Sending on Socket/fallback/fallback-net
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 4
send_packet: Network is down
DHCPDISCOVER on lo to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 5
receive_packet failed on eth0: Network is down
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
send_packet: Network is down
DHCPDISCOVER on lo to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 9
send_packet: Network is down