eth0 Problems; RHEL 6

[bronzed_bison]

Hi,

I recently installed RHEL 6 on my machine (forgive the flavour: I don't have much of a choice in the matter).

The OS has been unable to detect my Ethernet network. This was foreshadowed during the install, when I couldn't connect to the Redhat servers or to the time-sychronisation servers. (this isn't a hardware issue: I can connect to the Internet through Windows).

I'm not sure at what level the problem is occurring. lspci spits out (among other things):

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetLink BCM57788 Gigabit Ethernet PCIe (rev 01)

This is the right controller.

ifconfig spits out:

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:16 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:960 (960.0 b)  TX bytes:960 (960.0 b)

This is just the loopback address. There is no mention of eth0. Also, there are no network scripts under /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts for eth0.

Some other people seem to have this problem as well, but I can't find any solved threads. Please let me know if anything can be done. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[Rubberman]

Unfortunately, I don't see support for this device in the available standard kernel drivers. You should go to the Broadcom web site and see if they have a Linux driver for this device.

[ProfTheory]

there are no network scripts under /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts for eth0.

Which interface scripts are there?

If your running a server then the network interfaces may not be labeled eth#.

Also if you run

dmesg|grep -i net

Does it show anything of interest?

[bronzed_bison]

Thanks for your replies, guys.

UPDATE: I booted into Ubuntu using a USB-key and I was able to surf the web. So I think this issue is pretty specific to the RHEL 6 install. It'd be cool if I could just "rip" whatever I need off Ubuntu and dunk it into my RHEL install. Is that possible? (long shot, I know)

Which interface scripts are there?

If your running a server then the network interfaces may not be labeled eth#.

Also if you run

dmesg|grep -i net

Does it show anything of interest?

@ProfTheory: Here's the output from the dmesg command.

$ dmesg|grep -i net
Initializing cgroup subsys net_cls
NET: Registered protocol family 16
NetLabel: Initializing
NetLabel:  domain hash size = 128
NetLabel:  protocols = UNLABELED CIPSOv4
NetLabel:  unlabeled traffic allowed by default
NET: Registered protocol family 2
NET: Registered protocol family 1
audit: initializing netlink socket (disabled)
SELinux:  Registering netfilter hooks
Initializing XFRM netlink socket
NET: Registered protocol family 17
Initalizing network drop monitor service
NET: Registered protocol family 10
ip6_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team
ip_tables: (C) 2000-2006 Netfilter Core Team

None of these look interesting to me (maybe they do to you?). Fyi, this is an RHEL 6 client install.

Also, list of files in the network-scripts directory:

ifcfg-lo
ifdown
ifdown-bnep
ifdown-eth
ifdown-ippp
ifdown-ipv6
ifdown-isdn
ifdown-post
ifdown-ppp
ifdown-routes
ifdown-sit
ifdown-tunnel
ifup
ifup-aliases
ifup-bnep
ifup-eth
ifup-ippp
ifup-ipv6
ifup-isdn
ifup-plip
ifup-plusb
ifup-post
ifup-ppp
ifup-routes
ifup-sit
ifup-tunnel
ifup-wireless
init.ipv6-global
net.hotplug
network-functions
network-functions-ipv6

[Rubberman]

What version of Ubuntu? The current version of Ubuntu uses a more current kernel than RHEL 6 and clones do, so it may well support this network chip set. The kernel of RHEL 6 is 2.6.32, and for Ubuntu 11, it is more like 2.6.36 or 38. There are significant differences between these kernels internally. You might be able to build the appropriate kernel driver for RHEL 6, but I can't say for sure without trying it.

[bronzed_bison]

What version of Ubuntu? The current version of Ubuntu uses a more current kernel than RHEL 6 and clones do, so it may well support this network chip set. The kernel of RHEL 6 is 2.6.32, and for Ubuntu 11, it is more like 2.6.36 or 38. There are significant differences between these kernels internally. You might be able to build the appropriate kernel driver for RHEL 6, but I can't say for sure without trying it.

Okay, so I went to Broadcom's website and followed their instructions (pg 28: no URLs for me, so www broadcom com/docs/support/ethernet_nic/Broadcom_NetLink-NetXtreme_DTM_306.pdf) (just fill in the two dots)
(in short, as root, I installed the kernel, ran rpm and rpmbuild, and finally did a modprobe)

On pg 29, they mention that I need to run some ".sh" scripts as patches specifically for RHEL (these instructions weren't present in the README).

I have a feeling that these update scripts / patches are the final missing link, but I can't find them on the Broadcom website or on the web (they definitely weren't in the driver zip file).

Does anyone know what the commands in those scripts might be, so that I can run them?

@Rubberman: You're right about the difference in kernel versions ... but I don't know any way around it

[bronzed_bison]

UPDATE:
I wrote to Broadcom and I'm awaiting a reply on the patches. I'm just wondering if I really need those.
After installing the drivers, ifconfig -a shows both eth0 and lo. Here's the thing, though: In my "Network Connections" GUI, eth0 doesn't appear (it should, right?). I tried adding and configuring a "Wired Network" manually, but that doesn't seem to work. I wonder what's missing...

[Rubberman]

You probably need to restart the network stack, or simply reboot the system.

[bronzed_bison]

You probably need to restart the network stack, or simply reboot the system.

I did a "service network restart" and a reboot as well. Nothing...

[Rubberman]

Please post the output of ifconfig