Internet Connection

[Cambo105]

After netacrdconfig...

2. knoppix@Knoppix:~$ ifconfig
eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:163:A8:91F
inet addr:128.119.26.193 Bcast:128.119.27.255 Mask:255.255.254.0
inet6 addr: fe80::216:d3ff:fea8:91df/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:985 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:114420 (111.7 KiB) TX bytes:492 (492.0 b)
Interrupt:16

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:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:1600 (1.5 KiB) TX bytes:1600 (1.5 KiB)

C. The ping looked the same, but I coudlnt get it to copy and paste like I had before, so I don't have a copy here.

Again thank you for your patience.

[Harry Kuhman]

1. IPv4 128.119.26.228
Mask 255.255.254.0
Gateway 128.119.26.1

This make sense. Windows has set your Internet connection up by DHCP and you're on the Internet.

2.
eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:163:A8:91F
inet addr:128.119.26.193 Bcast:128.119.27.255 Mask:255.255.254.0
inet6 addr: fe80::216:d3ff:fea8:91df/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:1214 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:139332 (136.0 KiB) TX bytes:492 (492.0 b)
Interrupt:16

OK, this is looking good also. We don't care aboit the local loopback stuff. Knoppix has got an IP address by DHCP. It's different than the address that Windows had, but that's fine. The DHCP server is just giving you an available IP address from the pool and giving you a "lease" on it. It will not give the address out again. If you look at your IP address again under Windows it will likely be different again. The mask is right, and we can see that packets are being sent and received. Unfortunately I have no ipv6 experience and this may well end up being some sort of ipv6 issue, but for now I'll focus on the ipv4 stuff.

C. ping 72.232.180.133
PING 72.232.180.133 (72.232.180.133) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 72.232.180.133: icmp_seq=1 ttl=47 time=47.2 ms

Ah! and here's the big news: You are on the Internet. That ping came back from knoppix.net, way down under.

So your "I can't connect to the Internet" problem is not a "I can't connect to the Internet" problem. But since I don't have any information about just what you are trying to do I'll have to ask more questions before I can tell you much more.

After netacrdconfig...

After the netcardconfig is not important. You were on the Internet before the netcardconfig, you likely were on it again after doing the config. Depending on your DHCP server you might get the same IP address, you might get a new lease on a different one. What I can tell you is to start looking elsewhere and don't keep doing netcardconfigs. And I should also mention, absolutely do not do manual netcardconfigs and put in an old IP address that you got from somewhere, you could very well cause network problems if you use an IP address that the DHCP server has already given to someone else, and worse case the network admin could come looking for you, or might completely block your MAC address from the network. This is part of the reason that I asked about a DHCP server back in my first post and several times since. I'm still at a loss to understand why you apparently are not willing to contact anyone running your school's network. They likely have seen this problem before and probably have support people on staff who's job it is to help you in just this kind of thing.

OK, here's the next test I can give you:

Boot Knoppix again. Confirm that ping 72.232.180.133 still gets a response. (Note that this is ping 72.232.180.133 and not PING 72.232.180.133 , in Linux case is important). Next try ping knoppix.net and let us know if that works. And here is what we will learn: If you get a ping from knoppix.net, then your DNS lookup is working fine, and the problem is very likely with whatever application that you think isn't working, or a EBKAC problem. If you don't get a ping, and that's kind of what I'm expecting, then you have a DNS issue. You local support people may very well be able to help you with this more than I, but you can always post back and see if someone can help you with that if it is the problem.

[Cambo105]

I did contact my school's network admin's, and I was told that Knoppix was not supported, so they couldn't do much for me. However I did confirm DHCP is what my school uses. If I pull up konqueror or iceweasel, I can't access web pages like google.com. I'll try those pings and see what happens, then report back.

[Cambo105]

I did a cold shut down of my computer, booted Knoppix and pinged the two addresses you gave me. These were the results:


PING 72.232.180.133 (72.232.180.133) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 72.232.180.133: icmp_seq=1 ttl=47 time=44.5 ms


PING knoppix.net (72.232.180.133) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 133.180.232.72.static.reverse.ltdomains.com (72.232.180.133): icmp_seq=1 ttl=47 time=43.4 ms

From what I could tell, these looked pretty promising to me, so I opened iceweasel and eureka, my internet connection worked fine. Previously when I tried this I got a sever error of some sort, but I wasn't shutting down my computer completely first, but this time I powered it down completely, not just a restart fom windows. So with just the simple fix, my problem is solved. Thank you very much for your help, I am very grateful. I learned quite a bit in the process, and I hope to continue this with my use of Knoppix. I'm sure I'll be back.

[Harry Kuhman]

but I wasn't shutting down my computer completely first, but this time I powered it down completely, not just a restart fom windows. So with just the simple fix...

I'm not really sure that the full shut down is needed. To be perfectly honest, I usually do a warn restart and I have never seen your problem. But I wanted to try to be sure that the old IP lease was being given up. If the full shut down had not worked I would have even suggest that you power the system down and wait 10 minutes before booting, just to let the DHCP server figure out that the old IP address/ MAC address was no longer in use. Now that you have things working, you may want to try and see if it indeed is still failing after a warm reboot. If it is still failing that way it would be interesting to look at ifconfig of the failing system to see if you can spot what is wrong, but you might find that you don't really need a cold boot.

Thanks for posting back and letting us know the issue is resolved.

If you do need to try for help with the local admin's people again, you might try just saying that you are running Linux rather than Knoppix. Of course, they will not likely be able to help with most Linux applications, but I would have expected then to not brush you off for simple trying-to-access-the-network questions.

Any time that you think you have a connectivity problem, two of the first things that you should think to do ate look at ifconfig to see if it makes sens, and try to ping another system. I suggest first pinging by IP address and then by URL (if there is a URL). Not all computers will respond to a ping, but if they do it's a confirmation that the network is running and that you can look elsewhere for the problem. This can be a handy tool when trying to get more complex things talking to each other across the network; if you can't ping each other then figure out why that is before spending a lot of time with the complex application.

Good luck.

[Cambo105]

I booted Knoppix after a warm restart, and I'm posting this message, so I guess I don't need to do a cold restart. Interestingly enough, I received another email from my school's admins. and I was told that they are indeed using DHCP (something I know by now) but that they could do little to help me because they don't support any Linux systems. My issues seem to be resolved, thank you very much for your patience and help.