Fedora 10 networking setup is amazingly horrible

[chem]

So, I'm trying to set up a new F10 install in a lab environment, where we're all on a private network behind a firewall with static IPs.

NetworkManager rejects any attempt for me to set a static ip. It just fails! It doesn't even save the info! It goes back to defaulting to auto DHCP. Then, after creating a new connection in NeworkManager and going back to edit the auto eth0 connection, NetworkManager crashed. One reboot later, the auto eth0 entry is gone and I have no network at all! Awesome, Fedora.

Network (the other service) also doesn't work. Neither service seems to save the subnet mask I enter. Instead of saving 255.255.255.0, it saves random garbage ("24") or the static IP I entered. w-t-f? Hell, not that it matters, stopping NetworkManager and starting network with the proper (works-in-F9) settings, I get no network here.

Want to start or stop a service via the gui Service Configuration from the System/Administration menu? good luck! Clicking on disable, start, or stop in that menu seems to do absolutely nothing to those services. Was this release even tested?

Asus M3A32-MVP Deluxe motherboard with onboard gig-E. Works fine in F9.

Anyone get a static IP address working in Fedora 10? What was your exact procedure? NetworkManager appears to be a steaming pile at time of F10 release.

[chem]

After manually editing the profile (for a correct subnet mask) in /etc/sysconfig/networking for ifcfg-eth0, I got the network service to work with a static IP. It would be nice if service configuration worked so that I could disable NetworkManager for future reboots. I guess that will need to be done manually too.

[scottro]

NetworkManager might be good one day. I don't use it, so I wouldn't know.
To disable it
chkconfig NetworkManager off

There are various threads about its weaknesses on the testing list, as well as its defenders.
Again, I stay out of it, because I don't use it, so don't know if there are workarounds for the static IP thingie, if it's a bug that's being fixed, if it will work without booting into Gnome, etc. <shrug>
Disable it and enable network
chkconfig network on
End of worries.

[chem]

Thanks scott. I'll try chkconfig in the future; as for now I kicked NetworkManager out of rc3.d. I just rebooted and I have NetworkManager off and network on by default, although for some reason it didn't initialize eth0 even though that's marked as ONBOOT. I had to restart the service, but network works now. Not a pretty procedure at all, but functional.

What is also frustrating is that Fedora does not release updated Live isos a month or two after initial release -- so anyone using a live USB stick will be stuck with all the ugly problems encountered on day one.

[twilightomni]

I remember the static IP problem being a holdover from Ubuntu 8.10's version of Networkmanager too. Saw some posts on Planet Ubuntu about it.

But 8.10 had the problem from the start, and it's been what, four months since their release? I'm really surprised that bug isn't fixed yet.

Really. I'm looking forward to trying F10 soon, but that is a mighty peculiar bug.

EDIT: Did a search on Ubuntu's launchpad. This bug has actually been around since 2006! And the earliest posts seem to hint that NetworkManager doesn't actually intend to ever support static IP, but maybe that's changed in the past two years.

From here, one Ubuntu guy gives his networkmanager workaround:

"Open NetworkManager, Edit Connections. Delete the default connection (auto eth0). Add a new connection with the static ip address information. Somewhere during this process, the NetworkManager asks for a legitimation (like sudo)."

No idea if it works, but good luck anyway.

[Maybe]

FIRST, I have to whine:
* My Fedora Core 6 OS running my MythTV box died last week. I came here to get the latest and greatest OS only to find I have to wait 7 more day; so I did... who needs to watch TV anyway!
* I spent all last night backing up those HD shows. I've had 2 hours sleep in the last 48.
* I bittorrented the Fedora 10 iso and left my torrent running in my colo cabinet seeding others at 6 MB/s.
* I clean install this OS with high hopes and then find out that my video card, a Riviera C-Media CMI 8738, is no longer part of the default system like it was in FC6! I spent hours trying to figure out how to fix this (you have to download Alsamixergui from Add/Remove Applications and then turn on the ports in alsamixer, all which I actually learned over in Ubuntu.) [If you can't tell, I'm not real knowledgeable in Linux.]

With my clean FC10 install, I try to set the static IP. IT WON'T TAKE. The subnet mask keeps reverting to my static IP number. I try DHCP but FC10 won't pull an IP from my server either. Boot into FC6 and all networking works, static and DHCP.

I follow chem and scottro's suggestions above but the network still won't communicate. If I did something to kill this network driver, I just don't know what it was; and then I find this thread. I can't imagine any excuse for something as basic as networking to not work even in a beta. What other basics are broken?

I have now been burned by Fedora. I'm headed over to Ubuntu. Fortunately, I don't seem to have the problem there as twilightomni suggested.

I'm sure a lot of people worked hard on this release and all I think about is my own personal frustrations.
I'm turning off my bittorrent and hope that others won't have the same stupid problems as me.
I got what I paid for.
Bye Fedora.
Rob

[wjp]

I remember the static IP problem being a holdover from Ubuntu 8.10's version of Networkmanager too. Saw some posts on Planet Ubuntu about it.

But 8.10 had the problem from the start, and it's been what, four months since their release? I'm really surprised that bug isn't fixed yet.

Really. I'm looking forward to trying F10 soon, but that is a mighty peculiar bug.

EDIT: Did a search on Ubuntu's launchpad. This bug has actually been around since 2006! And the earliest posts seem to hint that NetworkManager doesn't actually intend to ever support static IP, but maybe that's changed in the past two years.

From here, one Ubuntu guy gives his networkmanager workaround:

"Open NetworkManager, Edit Connections. Delete the default connection (auto eth0). Add a new connection with the static ip address information. Somewhere during this process, the NetworkManager asks for a legitimation (like sudo)."

No idea if it works, but good luck anyway.

First off, ubuntu 8.10 has only been around since the end of October of 2008. Network Manager has it's flaws as well as fans. You can download wicd which removes network manager during installation. wicd works great and manages both wired and wireless connections, but you have to remember to setup the service at startup or else you need to run it manually every time you boot.

cheers,

[kevmif]

I always disable NetworkMangler - its a GREAT start, but to me its just a pain in the ass.

[scottro]

Judging from another post on the forums, http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showthread.php?t=205189 it may be necessary to manually set the address right now in /ec/sysconfig/network-scripts. My Fedora 10 boxen are all using DHCP. The only time I set a static address, while testing something, I did it that way anyway (manually setting it) simply because I feel more comfortable directly editing the file.
I agree with kevmif, NM is getting there but still a nuisance, especially since, as with most GUI tools, it tends to not tell you what went wrong.
To the fellow who gave up, it isn't always perfect in Ubuntu either, and we're sorry to lose you.
However, in fairness, though we often get people here who have come to Fedora from Ubuntu because of a problem with it, generally speaking, yes, Ubuntu tends to work better.

They have a different goal--Fedora's is often to test things before they're quite ready while Ubuntu's number one bug is that Windows is more popular. With that in mind, they spend more effort making sure that things work.

[nulli_secundus]

Heh, and here I was thinking the Fedora 10 install had been flawless...then I tried to change my ip to static. Well, I enjoy the tinkering, which is why I enjoy Fedora I'm sure NetworkManager will get there eventually.

EDIT: Did a search on Ubuntu's launchpad. This bug has actually been around since 2006! And the earliest posts seem to hint that NetworkManager doesn't actually intend to ever support static IP, but maybe that's changed in the past two years.

From here, one Ubuntu guy gives his networkmanager workaround:

"Open NetworkManager, Edit Connections. Delete the default connection (auto eth0). Add a new connection with the static ip address information. Somewhere during this process, the NetworkManager asks for a legitimation (like sudo)."

No idea if it works, but good luck anyway.

Tried this on my first attempt, and I got an error about plugins not allowing add, or something to that effect. Seems to be when selecting the allow all users option. Either way, I could not get it to work through NetworkManager.

[scottro]

I vaguely remember some threads on the testing list, discussing an end goal of having it work before logging in and all that good stuff, but I didn't pay that much attention to it. In many ways, it's a good program, similar to some of the MS and Mac wireless wizards. The trouble is, I would guess, that when making something that works that way, when you start doing something differently than the default, it might become less flexible. MS and Mac have the advantage of only having one desktop. Whereas in Linux, BSD and the like, the user might use Gnome and might not.

Actually, I think NM is more a Gnome than Fedora thing, isn't it?
Regardless, the only time I've used it is when setting up Ubuntu for a friend, where it worked fine. However, they were taking all the defaults, booting into Gnome and using DHCP.

In my own case, I boot into textmode, use fluxbox as my default WM, sometimes need DHCP and sometimes static, etc., etc. It also came along after I'd gotten comfortable setting up networking manually, so I never gave it any sort of trial, especially in Fedora, which is my main workstation O/S. (In Ubuntu, if I run it for something, I just go for defaults--once, after reading an interesting thread on fedora-testing, I tried it in Fedora, using all defaults and it seemed to work fine there too.)

So, as a tool for the beginner, who is more prone to accept defaults, it's probably quite good, similar to an Apple or MS GUI setup tool.

[a59]

Installed Fedora 10 today after a gap of 5 years ( used redhat then ). After the rave reviews, I was so looking forward to trying the linux distro again that was my first. Unfortunately, it seems to be a case of one step forward, and 2 back. My wired network did not work either. Same problem that Chem mentioned and finally fixed it thanks to Chem's tip again.

I know since I'm not contributing I'm not exactly welcome to complain- but what's happening here? After display and keyboard, networking is the first thing that should have been working in this day and age. And this after the press praised the much improved network manager!

Fedora may be a test bed of cutting edge developments and all that but does not anyone test anymore? No automated regression testing, no use cases? A bug this sever escapes the alpha, beta releases as well? If distros backed by the likes of RedHat, Novell and Canonical can't get wired networking working correctly out of the box, then Linux is still not getting non-geek friendly.

Apologies for venting... I am getting back to trying linux distros with an idea of contributing eventually, so I'm not all bad :-) On the plus side, Fedora startup is very cool on my ATI carded IBM Thinkpad. The gnome UI looks refined to me- much better than KDE/Mandriva, somewhat better than Gnome/Opensuse, and as nice as gnome/ubuntu 8.10.

Oh, and by the way, the installation also did not go glitch free, but I like Fedora's installer after booting up from LiveCD- better than the 3 distros I mentioned earlier. So some great work going on.

[marko]

I think a lot of people here are using NM in the wrong context, if you have a fixed box on a home network don't use NM! Even if you don't use static on a fixed network but DHCP (I used MAC fixed leases to get the functionality of predictable IPs while using dhcp), use the network service.

The only appropriate place to use NM is for a laptop that's moving constantly between cafes and work and other wireless ephemeral networks. NM is designed to favor the wireless interface over the wired if it sees both. This is why so many people have problems where a wired I/F will drop when they don't want it to.

Probably the mistake is that Fedora hasn't added a question to the firstboot process to ask the user if they want NM or network (or maybe don't actually say those names but explain "is this a mobile device or a fixed workstation" and then setup the service either way depending on the answer.

[nulli_secundus]

I think a lot of people here are using NM in the wrong context, if you have a fixed box on a home network don't use NM! Even if you don't use static on a fixed network but DHCP (I used MAC fixed leases to get the functionality of predictable IPs while using dhcp), use the network service.

The only appropriate place to use NM is for a laptop that's moving constantly between cafes and work and other wireless ephemeral networks. NM is designed to favor the wireless interface over the wired if it sees both. This is why so many people have problems where a wired I/F will drop when they don't want it to.

Probably the mistake is that Fedora hasn't added a question to the firstboot process to ask the user if they want NM or network (or maybe don't actually say those names but explain "is this a mobile device or a fixed workstation" and then setup the service either way depending on the answer.

If we are using it in the wrong context, as you say, it is only because it is there by default - and being there by default, you may be excused in thinking that the NetworkManager would manage all your network configurations. This really does seem like something that should "just work" in a final release. It is easy for a lot of us to work around, but first time users would be scratching their heads, methinks.

Maybe there should be an option to use/not use it during install, but we are stuck with it at first boot for now.

[spynic]

i got rid of network manager...
even system-config-network has some issues...
i edited the network setting via the cli