Help with Network card detection

[fw12]

I built a server and configured all services the way I want them. I then cloned the hard drive for use on server #2.

Server #2 booted ok, except that the NIC card isn't detected.

lspci outputs the following:

------------------------BEGIN--------------------
00:00.0 Memory controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 Memory Controller (rev a4)
00:01.0 ISA bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 ISA Bridge (rev b1)
00:01.1 SMBus: nVidia Corporation CK804 SMBus (rev a2)
00:02.0 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 USB Controller (rev a2)
00:02.1 USB Controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 USB Controller (rev a4)
00:04.0 Multimedia audio Controller: nVidia Corporation CK804 AC'97 Audio Controller (rev a2)
00:06.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 IDE (rev f3)
00:07.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 Serial ATA Controller (rev f3)
00:08.0 IDE interface: nVidia Corporation CK804 Serial ATA Controller (rev f3)
00:09.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCI bridge (rev a2)
00:0b.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE bridge (rev a3)
00:0c.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE bridge (rev a3)
00:0d.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE bridge (rev a3)
00:0e.0 PCI bridge: nVidia Corporation CK804 PCIE bridge (rev a3)
00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Hypertransport Technology Configuration
00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Address Map
00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] DRAM Controller
00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] K8 [Athlon64/Opteron] Miscellaneous Control
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Radeon RV100 QY [Radeon 7000/VE]
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 01)
------------------------END--------------------

cat /etc/sysconfig/network gives:
NETWORKING=yes
HOSTNAME=localhost.localdomain

ifup eth0 gives:
forcedeth device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initializaiton.

Any help to get my networking up and running would be appreciated.

[bradchaus]

can you post

cat /etc/modprobe.conf

[jcliburn]

forcedeth is the wrong driver for your NIC. You should use the r8169 driver. I think brachaus is on the right track. In /etc/modprobe.conf, you need a line that looks like this:

alias eth0 r8169

[fw12]

Thanks for your help.

I'll post the output of
cat /etc/modprobe.conf
on monday when I get back to work.

Also, I found out that the NIC is always sharing IRQ with some other device. Some people say NIC cards don't like to share IRQ's.

[fw12]

Here is the output of cat /etc/modprobe.conf

alias scsi_hostadapter sata_nv
alias ieee1394-controller ohci1394
alias eth0 forcedeth


I changed the line
alias eth0 forcedeth
to
alias eth0 r8160
and rebooted.

ifup eth0 gives:
r8169 device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization.

Also, ifconfig only lists the "lo" adapter. The eth0 does not show up.

I looked in my BIOS, and I have this line:
OnBoard GigaLan (RTL8111B) [Enabled]

Could the onboard NIC card just be bad?
I don't think the NIC is bad, because I can do:
ping localhost
and get a response.

What am I missing?

[jcliburn]

Your NIC probably isn't bad, but it may be too new for the kernel to support it. Can you determine its PCI ID? Execute these two commands:

/sbin/lspci
/sbin/lspci -n

Correlate the two outputs to determine the PCI ID. My NIC is listed as the last line of my lspci output, and its PCI ID is 1969:1048.

[jcliburn@osprey ~]$ /sbin/lspci
[...]
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Attansic Technology Corp. L1 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (rev b0)
[jcliburn@osprey ~]$ /sbin/lspci -n
[...]
02:00.0 0200: 1969:1048 (rev b0)

We can use the PCI ID to determine whether or not your NIC is supported.

[fw12]

Thanks for sparing your time to help me with this.

/sbin/lspci
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit controller (rev 01)

/sbin/lspci -n
03:00.0 0200: 10ec:8168 (rev 01)

[bradchaus]

Originally Posted by fw12

Here is the output of cat /etc/modprobe.conf

alias scsi_hostadapter sata_nv
alias ieee1394-controller ohci1394
alias eth0 forcedeth


I changed the line
alias eth0 forcedeth
to
alias eth0 r8160
and rebooted.

ifup eth0 gives:
r8169 device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization.

Also, ifconfig only lists the "lo" adapter. The eth0 does not show up.

I looked in my BIOS, and I have this line:
OnBoard GigaLan (RTL8111B) [Enabled]

Could the onboard NIC card just be bad?
I don't think the NIC is bad, because I can do:
ping localhost
and get a response.

What am I missing?

I note from your original post that you cloned the hardrive from another computer. This means that Fedora Anaconda hasnt had a chance to configure your hardware. Its a long shot, but I would do a clean install.

as for pinging localhost, that doesnt indicate the health of your NIC ... pinging lo goes via unix sockets, not via tcp.

On the surface I would have thought you would have a woprking server if you fixed the alis line in /etc/modprobe.conf ... but strange things can happen ... try a clean install specifically.

thats my 2 cents

[jcliburn]

Originally Posted by fw12

Thanks for sparing your time to help me with this.

/sbin/lspci
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit controller (rev 01)

/sbin/lspci -n
03:00.0 0200: 10ec:8168 (rev 01)

There are a good number of variations of your NIC based upon different mac and phy subdevices. There's not an easy way that I know of to determine which mac and phy your NIC has, although I do note there are some new mac/phy device pairs supported in the upcoming 2.6.24 kernel, but that won't help you in the short-term.

In this thread the r8169 driver maintainer reports the driver supports *some* 8168b NICs. I suspect yours might not be one of them, unfortunately. Perhaps you might try the out-of-tree Realtek driver until yours is supported in the kernel.

[fw12]

Originally Posted by bradchaus

I note from your original post that you cloned the hardrive from another computer. This means that Fedora Anaconda hasnt had a chance to configure your hardware. Its a long shot, but I would do a clean install.

It's a shame.
My scenario is such that I have a server that takes about a week to setup: lamp, raid, qmailrocks, jabber, security, mysql replication, tinydns, etc.

My plan was to have a master copy that I could simply clone whenever one of my servers crashes. I guess there's more to it than meets the eye.

My clone seems to work fine, except for the NIC problem. I even disabled the onboard card, and inserted a Linksys Etherfast card. It was detected, but here is the bizzare result:

lspci
01:04.0 Ethernet controller: ADMtek NC100 Network Everywhere Fast Ethernet 10/100 (rev 11)

lspci -n
01:04.0 0200: 1317:0985 (rev 11)

ifconfig lists eth0, but no IP is shown.

service network restart
showed something interesting:

Shutting down interface eth0: Device eth0 has MAC address 00:20:78:1F:505, instead of the configured address 00:04:61:AC:55:50. Ignoring. [FAILED]

Shutting down loopback interface [OK]
Bringing up loopback interface: [OK]

Bringing up interface eth0:
Determining IP information for eth0... failed. [FAILED]

What is the meaning of:
Device eth0 has MAC address 00:20:78:1F:505, instead of the configured address 00:04:61:AC:55:50? I didn't do any manual MAC configuration, and there's nothing configured like that in the BIOS.

Anyway, I'm doing a clean install on a different hard drive now. I'll post back what happens.

Thanks.

[fw12]

Note, the big grin icon above is the result of the system auto replacing : D

[jcliburn]

Originally Posted by fw12

Shutting down interface eth0: Device eth0 has MAC address 00:20:78:1F:505, instead of the configured address 00:04:61:AC:55:50. Ignoring. [FAILED]

That'll turn out to be a major clue, I suspect. It most likely means your /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file contained the mac address of your previous NIC.

If that's true, then your load-from-scratch will fix you up.

[fw12]

Well, a fresh install on a new hard drive using the Linksys NIC worked.

I removed the Linksys, and re-enabled the onboard NIC.
Changed alias eth0 tulip to alias eth0 r8169
Once again, the same message:
r8169 device eth0 does not seem to be present, delaying initialization.

Disabled onboard NIC, re-inserted Linksys and restored alias eth0 tulip.
I got online.

So, somehow, I ended up with an onboard nic card that is either not supported, or bad.

I appreciate everybody taking the time to look into this problem for me. I learned a few things about what is under the networking hood.