2 NIC in 1 System

[Sicboy]

I'm extremely new to Red Hat 9, so bear with me. I'm trying to get my Red Hat install to work with 2 NICs. One activates, the other doesn't. And, the one that does activate, it will not take the IP from my cable modem (though it is setup to grab an IP from the DHCP). My Windows XP box it without any problems.

What I'm trying to achieve is to create a firewall on the Red Hat box, one NIC will be connected to the cable modem and the other to a hub. Hopefully, I'll learn enough to help others here....

Thanks for any and all help!

Cheers!
John

[Roxoff]

Are both the network cards using the same chipset? If so, it can be quite an adventure getting the right one in software config.

Use the redhat network tool in RH9 ('redhat-config-network') to configure the network interfaces, turn them both onto DHCP, plug the one you want as your external interface into your cable modem, reboot (or restart your networking layer with 'service network restart'), and see which one is given an IP address. You can configure your way out from there.

[Deepak.kpadhi]

Hi john,
Acording to you, one of the tow NICs is not working. Have you checked whether redhat supports that particular H/w or not? If it supports, check whether RH9 detects it during boot up or not.

Thanks and Regards,
Deepak

[drakebasher]

Are both the network cards using the same chipset? If so, it can be quite an adventure getting the right one in software config.

I had to do this using Slackware and 2 identical ISA cards. All that was required was a couple of statements (in modules.conf?) something like 'alias eth0 3c509' and 'alias eth1 3c509'. Of course, the driver must be available. Try this link. Note also, that 2 NICs in one box need to be on 2 different networks, as defined by their IP address and netmask. But I guess that won't be an issue if you have dhcp get an address from your ISP and you use proper 192.168.x.x addresses for your internal network.

[Sicboy]

Are both the network cards using the same chipset? If so, it can be quite an adventure getting the right one in software config.

Use the redhat network tool in RH9 ('redhat-config-network') to configure the network interfaces, turn them both onto DHCP, plug the one you want as your external interface into your cable modem, reboot (or restart your networking layer with 'service network restart'), and see which one is given an IP address. You can configure your way out from there.

One NIC is a 3Com and the other is an SMC or Realtec (don't remember, at work right now). But, I tried what you've suggest already. I had a friend come over to help (Sys Admin guy). It won't take the IP being doled out by the Cable Modem. It's the strangest thing.

[Sicboy]

Hi john,
Acording to you, one of the tow NICs is not working. Have you checked whether redhat supports that particular H/w or not? If it supports, check whether RH9 detects it during boot up or not.

Thanks and Regards,
Deepak

Yeah, Red Hat sees it on boot up, installed it and configures it. But, it cannot activate it. Maybe Red Hat doesn't like this NIC.

[lonin]

Have you tried to manually get the cards running using
ifconfig eth1 <IPADDR>
Depending on whether you can get them up manually, we could diagnose more from there.
"Yeah, Red Hat sees it on boot up, installed it and configures it. But, it cannot activate it. "
What do you mean by configures it but cannot activate it?

[Roxoff]

One NIC is a 3Com and the other is an SMC or Realtec (don't remember, at work right now). But, I tried what you've suggest already. I had a friend come over to help (Sys Admin guy). It won't take the IP being doled out by the Cable Modem. It's the strangest thing.

Have you tried swapping the cards over, and setting the other one to be the one that plugs into the cable modem, just to see if it'll work in that configuration?

[supaphat]

If you can run `dhclient eth[01]`, see if you are getting the proper DHCPDISCOVER , etc from your DHCP server.

[Sicboy]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll try them all this weekend and let you know. I'll report back here with results!

Cheers!

John