LinuxMCE Forums

General => Users => Topic started by: matt4914 on August 23, 2009, 09:46:12 pm

Title: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: matt4914 on August 23, 2009, 09:46:12 pm
Hi.

I'm new to LMCE and am struggling to get my system up and running.  The first couple of times I started my system (After several issues with an IDE controller--thanks to LinuxQuestions.com for helping me with that) everything worked fine except that I could not get online.  I only had one NIC in at that time.  I played with the Admin page and network settings to no avail.  I then tried putting in a WiFi PCI card I had lying around.  Now, every time I start up the system, it doesnt get past the Launch Manager.
Everything started as normal up to the Launch Manager. The messages got as far as "Please be patient. This may take a while..." after the message saying that startcoreservices.sh was starting, and that is where it stopped.
It also says

Connecting to router at 127.0.0.1
initialize_LMdevice: connect failed
initialize_LMdevice: not retrying
Connecting to router at 127.0.0.1

and so on.  The screen is locked beyond moving the mouse--I cant click anything.

Please help me!

--Matt
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: gadget on August 24, 2009, 05:04:09 am
You are not going to get any support if the Core doesn't meet the minimum requirement of 2 NIC's. Wireless does not meet that requirement.

gadget
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: simon_b on August 24, 2009, 07:33:43 am
Buy the second NIC and you'll be fine - these few extra €/$ make a huge difference and A LOT easier setup, trust me!  ;)
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: Kooma on August 24, 2009, 07:38:05 pm
Hi, what motherboard you're using?
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: matt4914 on August 25, 2009, 10:30:51 pm
okay SO:  I bought the second NIC card and still am having the issue.  My LMCE system wont connect to the DHCP server in my house manually or (preferably) automatically.  Ive tried static IPs and automatic settings with no success.

My motherboard is a BioStar TA790GX XE.  The NIC is a cheap Dynex one from bestbuy with a Realtek chip on it.  The system detects the card just fine but wont connect to the router/internet using either the onboard or card ethernet.  The setup is as follows:

Cable--SurfBox High Speed Modem--Linksys Wifi/LAN Router--(Cat 5)--LMCE box
                                                                -------Mac OSx10.5.4 Laptops (wired and Wifi)
                                                                -------Print Server/Printer

I also am pretty noobish as far as linux and (once Ive connected to the internet) will need help downloading updates and drivers (particularly for my NVidia 9400 GT--Ive tried advanced GUIs and they are UGLY right now.  But thats with the standard driver.  with the processor (a dual core 2.9 ghz AMD), 2 gigs of ram, and the Nvidia I should be able to run the highest settings right?)
All the other computers on the network get both wireless and wired internet (depending on if the LAN cable is plugged in)

Thanks so much!  Please give me some advice!
--Matt
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: simon_b on August 25, 2009, 10:53:51 pm
are you sure, you connected the "onboard" NIC with the router? the second (new) NIC with the Mac (or nothing) --> after that installed Kubuntu 8.10?

There has to be after install: eth0 - connected... and eth1 - disconnected (if I recall correctly)...

Bye
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: matt4914 on August 25, 2009, 11:11:13 pm
Im still using 7.10 for stability's sake.  Im not sure which card should be connecting to the external network and which should be internal.  Nothing is connected on the internal, the macs are all on the external network (for now, I'd like to keep it that way...plus, some are family machines which wont ever be connected to LMCE).

The goal is to connect the LMCE box to the external network at this point, thats all.
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: simon_b on August 25, 2009, 11:16:11 pm
Like said... connect the motherboard NIC to the router, nothing else to the second (later installed) NIC.

if you need DVD, then everything should go very smoothly
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: colinjones on August 26, 2009, 12:04:45 am
in a terminal, type -

ifconfig -a

and paste the results here.

We need eth0 connected to your internet and eth1 to the internal network. Sometimes these get mixed up, especially if you haven't reinstalled after messing around with wifi... I suspect they are either the wrong way around or you have ended up with eth1 and eth2 instead of eth0 and eth1
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: matt4914 on August 26, 2009, 12:19:00 am
Ive reinstalled since messing with WiFi--I have not reinstalled since installing the second NIC.  Ive connected the motherboards NIC to the router and the new NIC (on the card) to nothing, as in instructed.  The ifconfig -a shows eth0, eth 0:0, and eth 1.  There is also lo under those.  It's impossible to paste the results below since I dont have internet on this machine...

Eth0:0 is the only NIC that has IP addresses etc.  They are as follows:

inet addr: 192.168.80.1 Bcast: 192.168.80.255 Mask 255.255.255.0

Eth0 has the following:

inet addr: fe80::230:67ff:fe07:653d/64 Scope: Link

Eth1 has no inet or mask info at all showing.

lo has
inet addr of 127.0.0.1 Mask 255.0.0.0
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: colinjones on August 26, 2009, 12:40:13 am
lo is normal, it is the loopback interface, ignore it.

The fact that you have eth0 and eth0:0 is at least part of the issue. And the fact that you have the internal address assigned to it doesn't help. My first reaction would be to reinstall again as this will likely clear it up. BTW, do connect the internal interface to the switch just to make sure LMCE sees a link, leaving it disconnected later is fine if you don't want an internal network (however you do see to want one anyway!) but leaving it unconnected during installation could potentially confuse matters.

If you don't want to reinstall, then you need to start by removing the eth0:0 subinterface, you should be able to do this by,

sudo ifconfig eth0:0 down

Then run ifconfig -a again. You could then try hitting the swap interfaces button in web admin. The difficulty here is, it is difficult to tell which interface is which. I don't suppose you have any way of telling what the actual MAC address of the PCI card is? Perhaps on the supplied literature? Failing that you could install ethtool

sudo apt-get install ethtool

then

sudo ethtool -i eth0 or eth1

This should list the driver used for that interface and assuming they are different brands you can then tell physically which NIC is associated with eth0 and which with eth1, and thus which physical NIC has which actual MAC address from the ifconfig command. Once you have that, we can force the correct NIC to have the correct ethX name using udev rules.

If you can't do this, then the only other suggestion is manually swapping the cables around (after deleting the subinterface) and rebooting a few times... it may achieve the same result but is somewhat blind!
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: matt4914 on August 26, 2009, 01:03:08 am
just curious, wont any apt-get command fail because i dont have a connection to the internet?

i tried taking the eth 0:0 interface out via command line but whenever i update the admin website, that fails.  I'd rather not reinstall the whole OS because I already loaded most of my music/movies/etc onto the machine....if i DO go down that road, wouldnt that confuse LMCE just as much because the router I have acts as a DHCP router?  (no DHCP routers on the internal network, correct?)

the ifconfig isnt showing the mac address of the card--how do i find this on the computer?
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: matt4914 on August 26, 2009, 01:28:54 am
hmm also when i do ifconfig eth 0:0 down and then restart the system it appears again.  i may just do a reinstall and leave the home folder.  sounds easiest.
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: matt4914 on August 26, 2009, 03:32:02 am
Okay, got some news--

i reinstalled the system and have tried both DHCP and static routing via my Linksys box, to no avail (The Static Routing worked with my macbook pro--i tested all the settings).  I have also tried plugging the LMCE box directly into my modem which also failed miserably.  im extremely frustrated with LMCE and with its inability to connect.  please help/give me ideas of things to try.
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: Techstyle on August 26, 2009, 04:03:08 am
now you have reinstalled can you confirm you have eth 0 and eth 1 only?
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: matt4914 on August 26, 2009, 04:07:20 am
i now have Eth0, Eth1, and Eth0:avah
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: Techstyle on August 26, 2009, 04:13:04 am
in webadmin>Network settings hit the swap interfaces button (or swap the cables so the other NIC is plugged into the router)

reload router and power cycle the router

Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: matt4914 on August 26, 2009, 04:14:24 am
what do you mean by reload router and powercycle the router?

I've tried swaping the interface buttons already once, but will try agian.
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: matt4914 on August 26, 2009, 04:30:31 am
Techstyle, will you marry me please?

This has solved my problem, though the internal network is now Eth0 (on mainboard) and the external Eth1 (pci card--now has cable from linksys router into it).  The important part is that I have an internet connection.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: Techstyle on August 26, 2009, 04:43:12 am
To get the external onto eth 0 swap the cables (take the cat 5 cable out of the PCI NIC plug it into the Mobo NIC) then press the 'swap interfaces' button in Webadmin --- 'Advanced > Network Settings' page.

You do know how to log into webadmin right?
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: matt4914 on August 26, 2009, 04:52:52 am
Okay--I might try that in a bit. And yes, I can log into webadmin.

How can I update my NVidia Drivers and the system in general?  Im really still very new to all this....Sorry!  Thanks for all the help!
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: Techstyle on August 26, 2009, 05:12:32 am
For the drivers:

http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Display_Drivers (http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Display_Drivers)

As for 'reload router', that is a term you will hear a lot around here.  In the Orbiter under Advanced (on both UI1 and UI2) there is a button called 'Quick Reload Router'.  it does exactly what it says, it reloads the device that routes messages through the LMCE system.

When I said power cycle the router, I was refering to the Network router/wifi access point.  this means pull the power cord out and reboot it.  My system sometimes doesn't get an IP address from my cable modem if I do not power cycle the modem.  Some are a little touchy, yours isn't judging by the fact yu didn't do it.
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: matt4914 on August 26, 2009, 06:08:53 am
Okay--Ive been working on the drivers, I think Ill get there by the end of tonight.  I really am not good with the Bash command line and all that bit.  I thought that reloading the router meant resetting the Linksys box--that didnt work but powercycling it did.
I guess it is finicky! 

--Matt
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: simon_b on August 26, 2009, 07:12:49 am
  im extremely frustrated with LinuxMCE and with its inability to connect. 

matt4914 ... it's not LinuxMCE, that is giving you (us) trouble... it is your (our) linux knowledge, that is giving us open questions, open issues, problems etc. - i know this from my experiences with ALL linux systems. we, "windows BABIES" do really have only small and short knowledge about the processes behind the GUI, and that's the real problem...

i've been there, i am there  ;D ;D
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: colinjones on August 26, 2009, 08:00:10 am
just to flesh out this point ... Reload Router is a bit misleading.... it isn't only the DCERouter "device" that it reloads.

LMCE consists of many "DCE Devices". These are actually modules of software that run as processes under Linux, but could actually be software running on absolutely anything, as long as they can communicate using the DCE protocol. A LMCE machine (core, hybrid or MD) can and does run any number of DCE Devices.... LMCE actually isn't about the hardware, it is a network of DCE Devices (software programs) all communicating with each other through the DCE Router. These DCE Devices can be anywhere and hosted on any hardware, but obviously they are usually on Linux PCs running either as a core or MD. (an example is, Thom is currently writing a DCE device for Windows PCs so that they can collaborate with LMCE).

Plugins are much the same as DCE Devices, except instead of running as their own Linux process, they are hosted within the DCERouter device, and are usually a single instance for the whole house to perform coordinating roles. eg there are as many Xine_Player DCE Devices in your house as there are MDs, but only one Media Plugin, and that coordiates all the media being played back throughout the house by sending the appropriate media stream to the appropriate Xine_Player device.

Reloading the (DCE) Router causes the DCE Router to send the "reset" command to all DCE Devices in the system, then shutdown its own device and start back up again. Meanwhile, all the other DCE Devices' processes shutdown and restart, then attempt to reconnect to the DCE Router. The end result is reloading effectively resets all the LMCE software in the house and starts it up clean again without having to reboot all your hardware.

NB: there are one or two pieces of LMCE software that is not implemented as a DCE device, and so reloading the router will not reset those... eg UpdateMedia, StorageRadars, MySQL, etc but generally these are pretty solid and don't need resetting.
Title: Re: New System Failing! Please help with network settings.
Post by: tschak909 on August 26, 2009, 12:15:55 pm
It is worth noting to _PLEASE_ use the Alpha if you can. We can not support 0710 any more, and you'll have better luck with your hardware combo generally if you do.

People get flummoxed with LinuxMCE over two sticking points:

* They don't use an NVIDIA card
* They don't put two network cards in and let it be the center of the house.

If you do those things, setup is smooth, I promise.

-Thom