Two Problems: eth0 down and dhcp to static IP switch

[enthusiast]

Hey all -

I'm brand new to Knoppix, but am relatively familiar with RedHat/Fedora. I have a Knoppix box running v4.0.2 (2.6.12 kernel). It's been running fine for several days, but this morning my eth0 device doesn't appear to be coming up. At least, it doesn't appear when I run ifconfig. I've tried "ifconfig eth0 up" with no luck. Of course, I've also tried "init 6" and restarting after a lengthier shutdown. No luck there either. When I boot up, I see a message that eth0 was detected and that the DHCP request is being sent to the background, but I never see any indication that an IP address was supplied.

My first thought, then, is that my machine has just stopped getting a response from the DHCP server and if that's all it is then there's no problem. I really want this machine to have a static IP.

So now to my questions:
1. Is there a problem with eth0 or is it my dhcp server simply no replying to my request for an ip address?
2. Since I want a static IP anyway, how can I change this from a DHCP client to a static ip?

Thanks very much for any help.

[Harry Kuhman]

I don't think we have enough information to tell you if your eth0 has failed. We don't even have the device model or any other newtwork hardware info, although I doubt that the model number would help in this case. My first approach would be to cycle power on both the computer and router, although it could even be something as simple as someone unplugging the network cable. Does this system also have Windows on it? Does that get a DHCP setup?

You can bypass DHCP by running netcardconfig and answering the first question about DHCP in the negative.

[enthusiast]

Hey Harry -

I should have mentioned that this is running inside of a VMWare instance. I meant to do so and just forgot. I don't have any reason to suspect that the hardware is failing. More likely, I think, that the dhcp server isn't responding to the machine's request. What I don't understand is why. That said, though, running netcardconfig did exactly what I hoped it would do. eth0 is back online and I have a static IP.

Thanks very much for your help.