DHCP server on both NICs

[jimmejames]

OK- Update.

External_IFACE:  eth1
External_Mac:  **********39  (this is the onboard nic)
External_IP        (blank)
External_netmask (blank)
external_dhcp:  1
internal_iface: eth0
internal_mac:  **********16 (dlink pci nic)
internal_ip: 192.168.80.1
internal_netmask:  255.255.255.0
gateway: 0.0.0.0
DNS1: **.**.**.5
DNS2: **.**.**.67  (both of these are the same as what is provided from my cable modem to my WRT54g)

Internet is not accessable on the core.

I did the ctrl+alt+f2 and ran:

ethtool eth1
It says a bunch of stuff, but the:
Supported ports: [ FIBRE ]
Port: FIBRE
Transceiver: Internal
Current message level: 0x00000033 (51)
Link detected: no

ethtool -i eth1
driver: r8169
version: 2.2LK
firmware-version: (blank)
bus-info: 0000:03:00.0

It is plugged in directly to my WRT54G and the lights are blinking on both.  I've tried different cables that I know work.

TIA,
James

[Zaerc]

...
I have LMCE running as DHCP and I changed the numbers that it assigns to match what the WPG54GS uses (default is 192.168.1.1).
...

That is very wrong for several reasons, do yourself a really big favor and leave it at 192.168.80.X as it was.

[jimmejames]

First of all- thanks for all of the help.  It would be much easier for people to read the posts and move on without giving it a second thought.  The fact that help is given without expectations is much appreciated.  I would like to think that I give back by updating the wiki and trying the hardware that I have, but there are certainly those that give a whole lot more.

/epilogue

I will certainly switch the cables and though the admin pages swap the interfaces to see if that changes things.  It seems odd to me that the core receives the DNS's from the WRT54G but does not get the gateway ip address.  Which leads to 3 questions:

1) I don't mean to argue, but wouldn't it be easier to diagnose the NIC problems when it is setup as it is?  In a 'passive mode' if you will where all it needs to do is receive an ip address from the network rather than having the core be the DHCP server on that nic?  My knowledge of these things is very limited. 

2) Is it necessary for eth0 to be the external and eth1 be the internal?  Does LMCE only act as a DHCP server on eth0?  If so, that would explain my initial findings where the DHCP server seemed to be passing ip address up the external network to my WRT54G and onto my GF's computer.

3) How do you know if your nic is supported?  I was reading this: http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Unrecognized_NIC but as that it is the core and not a MD, I don't know if it will PXE boot.  What makes me believe that it works is: it can read the MAC address, and receives the DNS information from the router.  What makes me believe it doesn't work is that it doesn't receive an ip address from the router.  I have mac address filtering on, but I think that only applies to the wireless network.  I will add this mac address to the allowed list just to be sure.

Thanks

[slapshot]

...
I have LMCE running as DHCP and I changed the numbers that it assigns to match what the WPG54GS uses (default is 192.168.1.1).
...

That is very wrong for several reasons, do yourself a really big favor and leave it at 192.168.80.X as it was.

Thom... you are starting to sound like the Vonage Tech support

They said the same thing about trying to change the IP for the Vonage VOiP Router. Anyways, I think I am in the same boat as I was last night. I installed the i386 version of LMCE instead of the AMD 64 version. I also kept the default settings for the network as they asked during the install. I also left the DCHP enabled on the wireless router. So now, my configuration looks like this:

Cable Modem --> Vonage VOiP Router, 192.168.15.1 --> eth0 (Core/Hybrid) 192.168.80.1 --> Eth1 192.168.80.103 --> WPG54GS Router (DHCP enabled) 192.168.80.2 --> Wireless Laptops (192,168.80.1XX).

Now I have internet access on both laptops like I am suppose to and my Vonage phone works. I am still getting "No data available" when I type ethtool eth1. Should I be worried about this?

[Zaerc]

...
I have LMCE running as DHCP and I changed the numbers that it assigns to match what the WPG54GS uses (default is 192.168.1.1).
...

That is very wrong for several reasons, do yourself a really big favor and leave it at 192.168.80.X as it was.

Thom... you are starting to sound like the Vonage Tech support

They said the same thing about trying to change the IP for the Vonage VOiP Router. Anyways, I think I am in the same boat as I was last night. I installed the i386 version of LMCE instead of the AMD 64 version. I also kept the default settings for the network as they asked during the install. I also left the DCHP enabled on the wireless router. So now, my configuration looks like this:

Cable Modem --> Vonage VOiP Router, 192.168.15.1 --> eth0 (Core/Hybrid) 192.168.80.1 --> Eth1 192.168.80.103 --> WPG54GS Router (DHCP enabled) 192.168.80.2 --> Wireless Laptops (192,168.80.1XX).

Now I have internet access on both laptops like I am suppose to and my Vonage phone works. I am still getting "No data available" when I type ethtool eth1. Should I be worried about this?

Reading is not really one of your strong skills now is it?  Anyway, this is the setup you likely want:

Cable Modem <--> Vonage VOiP Router (DHCP enabled) 192.168.15.1 <--> eth0 192.168.15.X (Core/Hybrid)  eth1 (DHCP enabled) 192.168.80.1 <--> [not the WAN port!] WPG54GS Router 192.168.80.X <--> Wireless Laptops (192.168.80.X)

And if you must configure that wifi-router staticly then you should make a hole in the dhcp ranges handed out by the core. 

[slapshot]

Sorry Zaerc, the South Park type avatars threw me ... my bad, I hope you (and Thom) are not offended. Anyways, I tried it the way you recommended and for some reason the Core is not handing out IP Addresses and I am showing limited or no connectivity on both the Windows and Ubuntu Laptops. I don't know what else to try. My experience with LMCE is limited and my experience with Ubuntu is only a little more. Any additional information or you can provide, or additional documentation you can suggest would be appreciated. I think I am getting cross eyed from reading the man pages

~John

[slapshot]

Dave,

     You are right, my wireless router is a WRT54GS, I don't regularly look at the model number.  In fact, the last time I looked at this router was about 6 months ago when I wanted to install DD-WRT on it, but because it is ver. 5, the flash was too small. But I digress, I would like the laptops to both be on the internal network so they can be used as web orbiters. I would try eliminating the router, but I don't have a switch or a hub to put into place of the router yet.  I don't think that the router is the real problem, though.
     I think that the problem is that I cannot get the Core/Hybrid to work as a DHCP server. Every time, I disconnect both the Vonage Router and the Linksys Router and set them up with DHCP disabled. Then reconnect them, then I go into the Network Settings under the Web Admin page and enter the data to run DHCP services at the core. When I connect either wired or wireless, I get an odd looking IP address with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0 and I have no access to the internet and I cannot even ping eth0 or eth1 on the Core. I am at a loss right now.

~John

[jimmejames]

John,

I got frustrated last night and disabled the onboard NIC in the bios, removed the pci tuner card and installed another pci nic (now have 2 pci nics).  I "/etc/init.d/networking restart" and kubuntu recognized it as eth3, but LMCE would not recognize the card.  I went into the system properties and tried to manually enable the card, but as soon as it said it was enabled it would switch to being disabled. 

So, I formatted the machine with the new card (stuck with the AMD64) and now everything works.  I am not convinced that LMCE updates when networks are swapped or when NICs are added/removed/changed.  I think I need to reinstall again, install the ASUS driver and not be switching cables and configurations around.

Maybe the same is happening to you.  Maybe LMCE is not updating and not recognizing what NIC you want to run the DHCP server on.  Until I got this box, I had been running the i386 version on different hardware and never experienced the DHCP issue.

[colinjones]

Dave,

     You are right, my wireless router is a WRT54GS, I don't regularly look at the model number.  In fact, the last time I looked at this router was about 6 months ago when I wanted to install DD-WRT on it, but because it is ver. 5, the flash was too small. But I digress, I would like the laptops to both be on the internal network so they can be used as web orbiters. I would try eliminating the router, but I don't have a switch or a hub to put into place of the router yet.  I don't think that the router is the real problem, though.
     I think that the problem is that I cannot get the Core/Hybrid to work as a DHCP server. Every time, I disconnect both the Vonage Router and the Linksys Router and set them up with DHCP disabled. Then reconnect them, then I go into the Network Settings under the Web Admin page and enter the data to run DHCP services at the core. When I connect either wired or wireless, I get an odd looking IP address with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0 and I have no access to the internet and I cannot even ping eth0 or eth1 on the Core. I am at a loss right now.

~John

John - not sure I fully grasp what you have set up, so I will just make some general comments based on this last post that may help (or not!)

You mustn't have any DHCP server on your internal network except the core (so turn off the router's one you said was on - think you may have done this already)
Don't turn off or tinker with the DHCP (server) settings on the core when you install - internal network must be eth1, external eth0. DHCP server only serves on eth1, and should automatically choose 192.168.80.1 for its own IP - if not, you have a problem....
When you say you get a strange IP with a 255.255.0.0 mask, does it start with 169.? If yes, then this is just DHCP autoconfiguring itself with a standard IP address because it didn't get any response from any DHCP server.
You say you have a router as your switch/hub on your internal network - as Zaerch says, NOT the WAN port! DHCP requests cannot natively pass through routers from one subnet to another. If you haven't got a hub/switch handy, then just plug the laptop directly by cat5 into your core's Internal interface. Most card do autocrossover these days, so at least you will eliminate whether the router/subnets or VLANs are causing you problem. If it gets a proper IP address then, then your problem is with the router...

[slapshot]

Thank you to everyone who assisted me with this troubleshooting... And to JimmieJames for me hijacking his thread.

I removed the wireless router from my setup and added a dumb hub and connected everything, then reset the Core to what the network settings were when I installed it... and Ta Dah! Everything works.

Now, to satisfy my wife by keeping the wireless connection available, I added it to the external network, so now my network looks like this:

Cable Modem -->Vonage VOiP Router (192.168.15.X)--> eth0 (192.168.15.4) CORE  eth1 (192.168.80.1) --> Hub --> Ubuntu Laptop (192.168.80.X)
                                               |--> WRT54GS Wireless Router (192.168.1.X) --> Windows XP Laptop (192.168.1.XXX)

Now that is all settled, I can start adding media!

~John

[jimmejames]

OK, back to the M3A78-EM.

I've updated the http://wiki.linuxmce.org/index.php/Asus_M3A78-EM but still am having problems with the NIC. 

I have completely reinstalled LMCE 710 from the AMD 64 DVD and put eth0 (my onboard NIC) as the external network NIC, and put eth1 as the internal network NIC.  On install, it has them the other way so I go into the admin pages and switch them. 

I don't remember, but I am pretty sure that on install the MAC address of the onboard nic is recognized, but it doesn't get a IP from the cable modem.  I followed the directions provided with the motherboard to install drivers for the nic.  What seems odd, is that I install drivers named r8168, but when I run "ethtool -i eth0" it says I am using driver r8169.

Kubuntu (under network settings) says that the device state is "Enabled" and has a green check mark next to it.  I have tried assigning an ip address manually, but I still have no connection.  "ethtool eth0" states that:  "Link detected:  no".


Any ideas?

[jimmejames]

M3A78-EM does not work for either AMD64 or the i386 DVD installations- maybe with the 810 version of LMCE.