Networking

[illuminatix]

Hi again Shah,

Thanks again for taking up your time. I erally haven't a clue here, seriously. I was given a fixed IP adress, subnet, gateway and 2 DNS by my ISP. I don't have any username or password. I have tried calling up my ISp, and the people there don't have clue. I'll keep on trying and trying and trying again, I guess.

One thing is though, when I subscribe up to this ISP, they asked me for my cable modem MAC ID.

Yours
Ethan

[shah]

One thing is though, when I subscribe up to this ISP, they asked me for my cable modem MAC ID.

I believe they didn't ask for cable modem MAC ID but your ethernet card MAC ID. Meaning you cannot change your ethernet card. You should use the assign MAC ID card only.

This is something I found from net:

If you have a Motorola CyberSurfr cable modem you will need to press the reset key on the back of the modem if you switch network cards. The ethernet card hardware address is read by the modem and once it is setup if the card is switched it must be reset.Just press the reset key for 10+ seconds and it will reread.

I have found that with the new system your NIC's MAC address must match what the cable system has. That is the Linux system you plug into the cable modem must use the same MAC that is programmed into the board.

If you didn't switch your network card (nic) then you could try this step:

1) Edit /etc/resov.conf
nameserver 202.137.3.120
nameserver 202.137.3.121

2) Edit /etc/network/interfaces
# /etc/network/interfaces -- configuration file for ifup(, ifdown(

# The loopback interface
# automatically added when upgrading
auto lo eth0
iface lo inet loopback


iface eth0 inet static
address 202.136.XXX.102
netmask 255.255.255.0
network 202.136.XXX.0
broadcast 202.136.XXX.255
gateway 202.136.9.1

3) Edit /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0
DEVICE=eth0
MACADDR="*" *Your MAC ID
IPADDR=202.136.XXX.102
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK= 202.136.XXX.0
BROADCAST=202.136.XXX.255
GATEWAY 202.136.9.1
ONBOOT=yes

4) In root shell run command:
/etc/init.d/networking restart
ifconfig -a

**Never quit **Take it as a challenge**That what makes me stay with Linux**

[illuminatix]

Hi Shah,

Thanx for the encouragement, no, I'm not intending to give up yet..hehe..
I've tried the scripts, it doesn't work..I'm suspecting I might get the MAC address wrong. I went over to http://192.168.100.1/address.html to check out my mac address and man, there're plenty of them HFC MAC address, Ethernet MAC address, Known CPE mac address(learned and Self). I'll try them out, and hopefully it can work.

There is a curious thing I've noticed, when I looked through the dmesg of the loading of knoppix, it says Eth0 is detected and DHCP is on, any idea what it means? If that is causing the problem, any way to turn DHCP off during load up?

Thanks again

Yours
Ethan

[shah]

[quoteThere is a curious thing I've noticed, when I looked through the dmesg of the loading of knoppix, it says Eth0 is detected and DHCP is on, any idea what it means? If that is causing the problem, any way to turn DHCP off during load up?[/quote]
Don't worry about that, it's knoppix hardware detection doing it's thing, detecting your network card and starting network configuration.

You mac address can be found when you run command:
ifconfig eth0

Your mac address is beside HWaddr.

[tearinghairout]

I disagree with Shah on the mac address issue. I think that the mac address you were meant to give them is the HFC mac address of your cable modem. This is how they authenticate you (or your cable modem at least) in lieu of any sort of login. But I guess the real question is, what mac address did you give your ISP when they asked?

You have said that you were given a fixed IP address, subnet, gateway, DNS etc by your ISP, but you did not make it clear if you were supposed to manually configure these settings or if your ISP will issue them via DHCP. This has a big bearing on how you should configure things.

I notice in some of your earlier examples that IP addresses you were showing weren't always consistent.
Whatever your addresses are meant to be, I would expect that the first 3 numbers of your IP address, your network address, your broadcast address and your default gateway should all be the same.
Additionally, the 4th part of the network address is usually 0, the broadcast 255, the gateway (conventionally, but not necessarily) 1, and the IP could be anything in between.
Also, given that your modem does not do NAT, forget about 192.168 addresses.

One last thing. If I were you I would start by forgetting about scripts like netcardconfig etc, and set it all up manually using the commands ifconfig, netstat, route, pump etc. This will be a good learning experience for you (don't worry, it's really not that hard if you take one step at a time, and we have a lot of patience helping people who help themselves (just ask cuddles about her winmodem)). When you are confident you understand what these commands do, then you can start using the more "friendly" commands, and you will be in a position to at least understand what they are trying to achieve to diagnose when they don't work.

[illuminatix]

hi Shah and Tearinghairout(an apt description of what I'm going thru now..hehe)

The fixed IP address, default gateway, DNS given by my ISP were to be manually configured by myself.

During the subscription, I was asked to give my cable modem HFC MAC address and also my USb CPE MAC address.

I will keep on trying, and I'll bother you all again, if I'm still heading nowhere, and thanx alot.

Yours
Ethan

[illuminatix]

Oh, another thing, the addresses that I was given, only the first 2 numbers are the same, as given below

IP:202.136.10.102
Gateway: 202.136.9.1
DNS: 202.136.3.120 and 202.136.3.121

that's all the information I was given by my ISP

[tearinghairout]

Hi Illuminatix

I originally came up with name TearingHairOut for exactly that reason. I was having a problem (not with Knoppix, I think it was with MS-Access) and had to register with ExpertsExchange, and the THO seemed fitting at the time.

Since only the first 2 numbers are the same, did they mention anything about a netmask?
Did they give you a number like 255.255.0.0?
Did they specify the IP addresses in a format like 202.136.10.102/16?
From my understanding of TCP/IP - if you are using the conventional C class address - the IP address and gateway you have can't possibly work together.

I would double check them with the ISP.

Do these addresses work in Windows? Maybe your ISP can't/won't help you with Knoppix, but if you are in a position to dual boot into Windows, and you tell them you are using Windows, then they may be a bit more helpful.

[illuminatix]

Hi again Tearinghairout,

Yup, those addresses works just fine in the WinXP box, I'm running. The Netmask given is 255.255.255.0

The problem I faced here is that the people working in the ISP are not very tech savvy as I am currently in Indonesia. I've tried asking for help through translation ( I can't speak indonesian myself), but the people here either just can't bothered or they don't know anything what they are up with.

Yours
Ethan

[tearinghairout]

If the IP and gateway addresses are correct as
IP:202.136.10.102
Gateway: 202.136.9.1
then you could try changing your netmask to 255.255.0.0

If that doesn't work, then can you please post the output of the following commands:
'netstat -rn' from both your working XP and also from Knoppix
'ifconfig' from Knoppix
'ipconfig' from XP