Getting Knoppix to recognize an thernet connection

[kwyjibo730]

My computer is connected to a router via ethernet cable and that router is connected directly to a modem (Basic LAN setup). How can I configure Knoppix to use this connection?

[OErjan]

if you use dhcp on the router it should be enough to boot knoppix.

[kwyjibo730]

Knoppix boots fine, it just doesn't have internet connection when it's running. According to my router settings I am set to DHCP

[Harry Kuhman]

Knoppix boots fine, it just doesn't have internet connection when it's running. According to my router settings I am set to DHCP
Are you sure you don't have an Internet connection? That may sound like a silly question, but we've gone through this before with someone who just did't try to put a URL into the Knoquror browser because that seemed too easy.

Assuming that you don't have a connection, we need some details. What router, make and model. You're trying this with a wired nic right, and not some unsupported wireless NIC? What NIC for that matter? Another problem that has been resolved in the past turned out to be a MAC address restriction table in the router. If your router has this feature and it is enabled, turn it off (for now, just for testing) even if the same NIC worked under windows.

What do you see if you do a netcardconfig and answer the question about DHCP affarmative? What is the output of the ifconfig command after this?

[kwyjibo730]

The router is a linksys wireless-g, however it's not used wirelessly. I have no internet/router problems to speak of when running XP so I'm fairly certain the problem is on the Knoppix end. MAC adresses don't appear to be restricted in anyway, however if you're familiar with the router you could tell me how to find out for sure. DHCP server is enabled. Will get back to you momentarily on netcardconfig and ifconfig

[kwyjibo730]

Here's the deal:
When I run netcardconfig if I answer for yes for "Use DHCP Broadcast" I get "failed" as the output. When I answer "no", I need to know which IP to use when it askes for IP Addr. of eth0; should I use 127.0.0.1, my computers internal IP, the router IP, or what. I'm assuming mask should remain the same as in the router settings and the other settings should remain default. Any ideas where these settings might need to be changed/synchronized with the router settings.

[Harry Kuhman]

Here's the deal:
When I run netcardconfig if I answer for yes for "Use DHCP Broadcast" I get "failed" as the output. When I answer "no", I need to know which IP to use when it askes for IP Addr. of eth0; should I use 127.0.0.1, my computers internal IP, the router IP, or what. I'm assuming mask should remain the same as in the router settings and the other settings should remain default. Any ideas where these settings might need to be changed/synchronized with the router settings.

I have not used that model Linksys, but have not had problems with Knoppix and other Linksys routers. I'm still wondering what your NIC is and if that's part of the problem.

Do not use 127.0.0.1. That's a local loopback addres for all TCP/IP stacks. The safest thing to use would be the IP addres that is assigned to that system in Windows, likely something in the 192.168.xxx.xxx range. Alternatively, you could select any other address that you knew was available, as long as the first 3 numbers matched what your router uses and you were sure that the fourth number was not in use elsewhere on you network. To be safe I would use an address that the router is not configured to hand out; for example if I let my router hand out IP addresses in the range of 192.168.xxx.100 to 192.168.xxx 200 then I would use 201 or 99 (192.168.xxx.99 to be more exact, where xxx is usually 0, 1 or 2 depending on router).

If it's a NIC problem then the manual netcardconfig may not work as well. If it's really a DHCP issue then you should be able to set in the values manually and find that you are on the Internet.

Not having a background with that particular router I can't tell you if it has a MAC address feature or not or where to find it. I guess I could try to look up the documentation on-line, but I'll leave that to you. Many routers, particularly wireless routers do now have control by MAC address. It's not usually enabled by default, so if you have not turned it on this is not likely to be the problem. But if you have set your MAC addresses into the router and then enabled this feature to keep out wireless hackers, look for it in your router and try disabling it for a quick test.

Let us know your results. It would be nice to resolve this so that you don't have to do the manual netcardconfig each time you boot Knoppix.

[kwyjibo730]

Problems fixed, I'm not sure exactly what I did, I guess the last bunch of settings I threw at it worked. Thanks for all the help

[kwyjibo730]

I'm afraid I'm having the problem again, but I think I may have trackeed down the root of it. I don't think there's any problem with the IP or Subnet Mask I'm using because after running netcardconfig and pinging the specified IP, everything pings perfectly, however I can't access pages on the internet. I think the problem may be with my DNS or default gateway. I've found several different values for these in my router settings and other places. Does anyone know where to find the correct values for a Linksys Wireless-G router.

[Harry Kuhman]

Problems fixed, I'm not sure exactly what I did, I guess the last bunch of settings I threw at it worked. Thanks for all the help

I'm afraid I'm having the problem again, but I think I may have trackeed down the root of it. I don't think there's any problem with the IP or Subnet Mask I'm using because after running netcardconfig and pinging the specified IP, everything pings perfectly, however I can't access pages on the internet. I think the problem may be with my DNS or default gateway. I've found several different values for these in my router settings and other places. Does anyone know where to find the correct values for a Linksys Wireless-G router.

I have no idesa what you did or didn't do based on the first post, nor would it have helped anyone else looking to resolve the same problem.

As to the DNS, that's the domain name server or name server. It's a system provided by your ISP, so others can't tell you what you should use (they might give you a setting that works, but if your ISP is properly configured than using theirs should be a lot faster than using a remote one). The gateway ususally ends up being the IP address of the router itself, as long as you are not playing games with proxies or other foolishness.

We likely can't provide any more information unless you actually tell us the exact settings that you are using. A wrong setting will jump out at a network technician who is used to woring with these numbers, but at this point only a psychic network technician can help you.

If you do learn what your issue is, please try to post back something more helpful than the first quote above.

[kwyjibo730]

The problem I'm facing is as such. My computer is wired to my Linksys Wireless-G router by ethernet cable. When I boot into Knoppix I need to run netcardconfig in order to set Knoppix to recognize the LAN (when I run ifconfig when I first start I only get stats for Local Loopback, not Ethernet). My router is enabled for DHCP but when I run a DHCP broadcast I get failed." When I answer the DHCP prompt in the negative the settings I use are as follows:

IP: 192.168.1.101
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Broadcast Address: 192.168.1.255 (I don't know what to put for this, so I leave the default)
Default Gateway: 192.168.1.1 (This is the address) I use to get my router settings
Nameserver: 167.xxx.x.203 (I forget the exact values, I can get them from the router settings, if anyone believes that makes a difference)

I once was able to get internet access, though I forget the settings I used, so there's definitely some solution to the problem. I know there's some internet functionality because when I ping the IP specified in netcardconfig, it pings succesfully, regardless of the fact that I cannot get access to web pages. Also when Knoppix boots it mentions in the output, eth0, so I believe it recognizes the ethernet connection somewhat. I think the main solution has to do with what I put into the netcardconfig settings. Would anyone know of any utils I could run or some settings that should be changed so I can get internet access.

[Harry Kuhman]

... I know there's some internet functionality because when I ping the IP specified in netcardconfig, it pings succesfully, regardless of the fact that I cannot get access to web pages. ....
What in the world does that mean? Pinging yourself tells you nothing. If you are trying pings, then first ping the router at 192.168.1.1 and see if you get a response from that. If that works try pinging 216.32.81.146. If that works then try pinging knoppix.net. If the second ping by IP address works and the third by URL does not then you almost certainly have a DNS issue, as they are both for the same system. We still can't tell you much about that DNS address where you hide part of it with xxx's, it might be a valid DNS server, or it might not.

[kwyjibo730]

Ok I've confirmed the DNS
3 are listed in my router settings
167.206.3.139
167.206.3.138
167.206.3.20
I will run those ping ASAP

[Harry Kuhman]

Ok I've confirmed the DNS
So did you try the ping tests that I suggested?

[kwyjibo730]

Ok the results of the pings are as follows.
When using the gateway as 192.168.1.1 I got no reply, but on a whim I set the gateway to the default 192.168.1.255 I was able to get a response. When I pinged 216.32.81.146 I got the message

send to: Network Unreachable
wrote 216.32.81.146

When pinging knoppix.net I got an "unknown host" reply (a problem with the DNS I believe, though I have no problems of the sort in WinXP.

[Harry Kuhman]

Ok the results of the pings are as follows.
When using the gateway as 192.168.1.1 I got no reply,....
That's bad, the router should respond to the ping.


.... but on a whim I set the gateway to the default 192.168.1.255 I was able to get a response.
192.168.1.255 is a broadcast address (at least when using the net mask you indicated), you should not set a broadcast address as a default gateway. When you did this, what did you get a response to, a ping? Who responded? Need details, otherwise this is meaningless.


.... When I pinged 216.32.81.146 I got the message
send to: Network Unreachable
wrote 216.32.81.146
Network unreachable is a pretty strange message, if the network card is working at all and you didn't get the same message when pinging 192.168.1.1. What were the settings when this happened? Did you have that bogus 255 in place, or a more reasonable default gateway?


When pinging knoppix.net I got an "unknown host" reply (a problem with the DNS I believe, though I have no problems of the sort in WinXP.
Well yes, that one does make sense if the system can't do a DNS lookup, but with the first two failing (and failing very strangely), you have more than only a DNS problem. A DNS problem would have been indicated if the first 2 pings worked properly and then the ping that needed DNS to look up the URL failed.

[tabo]

Hey guys. I recently started test-driving Knoppix 5.1 live cd. So far so good. Only problem is connecting to the internet via wifi. I configured ath0 and it connects to the AP. I can see its status as connected, shows my IP GW and SM. When I fire up the browser I can't pull any websites. I did a ping and can only ping the default gateway 192.168.1.1 passed there if I try to ping I get the error message ERROR: NETWORKS IS UNREACHABLE. I'm hitting a brick wall with this. Everything seems to be configued right. I can do a scan and see all the APs on my area. Any idea????

[kwyjibo730]

tabo-

I was never able to solve this problem, and had it with all linux distros i tried (incl. debian, fedora core 4 and 5, and ubuntu). By and large I just gave up with Linux for now. Hope the situation works out better for you. However, the problem I had was there was no recognition of an internet connection whatsoever and no functionality (even though my netcard is hardwired to my router)

[Harry Kuhman]

kwyjibo730: I tried to help, but you never responded to my questions.

tabo: I'm pretty unreceptive to "I'm having the exact same problem" posts, particularly when the original poster can't quite define his problem. Still, I have been able to help a lot of wired eithernet users get their network connections working. You would likely be better off starting your own thread, but if you still want help post some information about your network hardware and ISP and basic information like the results of ifconfig and similar basic tests.

[JohnnyH]

Hey guys. I recently started test-driving Knoppix 5.1 live cd. So far so good. Only problem is connecting to the internet via wifi. I configured ath0 and it connects to the AP. I can see its status as connected, shows my IP GW and SM. When I fire up the browser I can't pull any websites. I did a ping and can only ping the default gateway 192.168.1.1 passed there if I try to ping I get the error message ERROR: NETWORKS IS UNREACHABLE. I'm hitting a brick wall with this. Everything seems to be configued right. I can do a scan and see all the APs on my area. Any idea????

tabo - this is just a 'shot in the dark' until you post the results of the status revealed by:

# ifconfig ath0

Try this command:
# ifconfig ath0 mtu 1500

*Please* let us know if this is successful, and at least please post the results of ifconfig ath0
- good luck :)