No External IP - I really tried...

[jhj]

Hello from Denmark. I'm very excited about getting LinuxMCE up and running on a PC with low power consumption. I read in this forum, that the EEE Box should be able to work nicely with LMCE, so I got my self one of those. I hope to get it running as a mediacenter, recording TV, and I also hope to use it as an internal file server and external webserver.

So during installation it didn't seem to be able to connect to the internet, so I checked that out after the installation. It seems it can't get an External IP-address! I've tried a lot of things to get this working, but without any success.

My Setup:
- DSL modem with a build in NAT.
- Linksys router with wired and wireless lan.
I have several other computers connecting nicely to the internet through the modem and the router. No problems there with getting ip-addresses and connected to the internet. So I expect that DHCP is working as it should. Note that there is only one NIC in the EEE box, but there is also WLAN. Don't know if I can use that in this case?

I've tried this:
- connect the PC to the router and also directly to the DSL modem. As expected: No difference there.
- http://forum.linuxmce.org/index.php?topic=2509.0 : Still no external IP.
- to set a static ip-address with the same configuration as when the other computers connect.
- booted the EEE Box on an Ubuntu 810 (boot system from CD), and it connects perfectly to the Internet.

Any help or comments is appreciated.
I'm new to LMCE but not to Linux.

Kind Regards
Johannes

[tschak909]

You need to connect to our wiki and read the FAQ. It is imperative that you set up the network like we specify in the FAQ. Two network cards, one connected to your modem, the other, to a switch. LMCE needs to become your firewall and router.

-Thom

[jhj]

Well I did that. Except, that my PC only has one networkcard, and as far as I know I can't expand it! (the EEE Box). So I just thought, that it should be working, if I just didn't have anything else on the network but the LMCE PC, which would be ok for me so far.

But even if I only have my LMCE connected to the ADSL router, and nothing else is on the network, it still doesn't work.

Is there no way to make this work without an extra network card?

Thanks for the quick reply by the way.

/jhj

[tschak909]

in short. no.

-Thom

You can use the eee Box as a media director with some modification. Talk to niz23. But you should use a bigger box for your core/hybrid.

-Thom

[nosilla99]

Thom,

I have always used linuxmce with a single network card and never had any problems.  There is a small amount of manual work required all of which can be carried out in a couple of minutes using the admin panel.

I have been surprised that people keep stating you need two network cards to run LMCE when this is certainly not inline with my experience.

I can rebuild my hybrid and post step by step instructions if people really want to know how this is achieved.

NOS.


 

[tschak909]

You miss the bloody point.

We can't support it in that configuration. Two network cards is how it works out of the box.

I _DO NOT_ want to bring this topic up again, and again, and again.

-Thom

[nosilla99]

Thom,

You only needed to state that 1 network card is not a supported plug and play configuration, although as the web admin panel allows you to configure the system with single network card using only a few steps the term unsupported is very subjective.  If the plan is to remove this functionality in the future then I can understand your stance.

NOS 

[colinjones]

I'm sorry nos, I don't agree with you. Thom is absolutely right, and I'm sick of the subject, too!

Fact is, almost anything is possible with a hack. But that isn't the point. It is the correct approach simply to say it doesn't work with a single NIC. If someone wants to expend a bit of their own effort, research it, and find out that there are documented ways of doing it single NIC style, then that is great. That comes with effort and some experience - they need to do this themselves, and be able to stand on their own two feet, not rely on the community to do it for them as it is, as you say, an unsupported config.

You know what happens when you complicate the message to a newbie user, and instead of saying "no, single NIC doesn't work" you say "single NIC isn't supported, but you can do it if you want to with some changes"? You get every newbie coming to the site wanting to set it up in single NIC mode, and rightly expecting Thom, me, and all the others on the site to help them out because we said it was possible.

The Truth and nothing but the Truth, but certainly not the Whole Truth! That's just naive. Dogmatically expounding the exact, absolute truth is diverting from the real point - spend the extra $15 for a second NIC and get over it Path of least resistance for newbies please... it is important for uptake and to keep the volume of repetative, pointless questions down!

(and btw, Thom didn't say it wasn't possible, he said "in short, no" which is my point, there is a longer yes answer, but it would be to miss the point!)