no route added by ifconfig on 3com w/ 2.6.6 kernel

I have a strange problem that I'm in the middle of investigating.

I built a system on my laptop and transfered it (via tar and netcat) to
a desktop system for use in a production environment. Works fairly well,
with one strange exception.

The desktop is configured via DHCP, and that part works, including
configuring the interface with the correct address and configuring DNS
information. It also adds a route for it (as can be shown with 'ip route
show').

That's not the problem though, the problem is that on the desktop, when
ifconfig gets run, but there is nothing except headers in /proc/net/route,
and thus nothing shown by the 'route' command, except the route _is_ in
the kernel.

The kernel used on both the laptop and the desktop is a vanilla 2.6.6
kernel. The NIC used on the desktop system is a 3Com 905 (inbuilt), and
the NIC on the laptop is a wireless ORiNOCO Gold 802.11b PCMCIA adapter.

I've also tested the internal Intel EtherExpress Pro NIC on the laptop,
and it works as expected, so it seems it may be something peculiar to
that machine hardware or the 3Com NIC.

Can anyone else reproduce this?

--
Cameron Kerr
(E-Mail Removed) : http://nzgeeks.org/cameron/
Empowered by Perl!

Update: Still fails with 2.6.7-rc2 (latest as of this writing)

I'm using Debian Sid.

'route --version' reports
net-tools 1.60
route 1.98 (2001-04-15)

'netstat -r' also shows nothing, but that is expected since it too uses
/proc/net/route

Trying now with a RealTek 8139.... and it doesn't work. Hmm, so it's not
the 3Com's fault, that's good to know.

Anyway, here is the output of 'lspci' and 'lspci -n'

0000:00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82810E DC-133 GMCH
[Graphics Memory Controller Hub] (rev 03)
0000:00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corp. 82810E DC-133 CGC
[Chipset Graphics Controller] (rev 03)
0000:00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801AA PCI Bridge (rev 02)
0000:00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801AA ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
0000:00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801AA IDE (rev 02)
0000:00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801AA USB (rev 02)
0000:00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corp. 82801AA SMBus (rev 02)
0000:00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corp. 82801AA AC'97 Audio
(rev 02)
0000:01:08.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
0000:01:09.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications, Inc. AR5212
802.11abg NIC (rev 01)
0000:01:0b.0 Network controller: RaLink Wireless PCI Adpator
RT2400 / RT2460

0000:00:00.0 Class 0600: 8086:7124 (rev 03)
0000:00:01.0 Class 0300: 8086:7125 (rev 03)
0000:00:1e.0 Class 0604: 8086:2418 (rev 02)
0000:00:1f.0 Class 0601: 8086:2410 (rev 02)
0000:00:1f.1 Class 0101: 8086:2411 (rev 02)
0000:00:1f.2 Class 0c03: 8086:2412 (rev 02)
0000:00:1f.3 Class 0c05: 8086:2413 (rev 02)
0000:00:1f.5 Class 0401: 8086:2415 (rev 02)
0000:01:08.0 Class 0200: 10ec:8139 (rev 10)
0000:01:09.0 Class 0200: 168c:0013 (rev 01)
0000:01:0b.0 Class 0280: 1814:0101

(Note, the onboard 3Com is currently disabled)

--
Cameron Kerr
(E-Mail Removed) : http://nzgeeks.org/cameron/
Empowered by Perl!

Cameron Kerr <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> I have a strange problem that I'm in the middle of investigating.

> I built a system on my laptop and transfered it (via tar and netcat) to
> a desktop system for use in a production environment. Works fairly well,
> with one strange exception.

> The desktop is configured via DHCP, and that part works, including
> configuring the interface with the correct address and configuring DNS
> information. It also adds a route for it (as can be shown with 'ip route
> show').

> That's not the problem though, the problem is that on the desktop, when
> ifconfig gets run, but there is nothing except headers in /proc/net/route,
> and thus nothing shown by the 'route' command, except the route _is_ in
> the kernel.

I find this paragraph a bit hard to parse, but have you considered the
possibility that the extra Ethernet interface present on the desktop may
be a part of the problem? Assuming the laptop had no wired Ethernet card,
of course.

BTW, route has been around even before the proc filesystem was put into
the kernel. It may get it's information from proc now, but in some past
kernel series it did not.

And, for what it's worth, I'm running a 2.6.4 kernel compiled here from
the standard source, have a self-assembled desktop with an ISA PCMCIA
card adapter, a wireless WaveLAN Bronze card (Orinoco chipset), a wired
plugin ISA 3Com 509, and don't have any such problem with route's output.
Also /proc/net/route contains more than just headers. Same net-tools
and route versions as yours.

> The kernel used on both the laptop and the desktop is a vanilla 2.6.6
> kernel. The NIC used on the desktop system is a 3Com 905 (inbuilt), and
> the NIC on the laptop is a wireless ORiNOCO Gold 802.11b PCMCIA adapter.

> I've also tested the internal Intel EtherExpress Pro NIC on the laptop,
> and it works as expected, so it seems it may be something peculiar to
> that machine hardware or the 3Com NIC.

> Can anyone else reproduce this?

Not me, given my setup.

> --
> Cameron Kerr
> (E-Mail Removed) : http://nzgeeks.org/cameron/
> Empowered by Perl!

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