Simple Switched Network

Hello,
I'm trying to setup a simple 5 computer network. Four of the machines
run Slackware Linux 9 (2.4.20) and the 5th runs Slackware 9 and
Windows XP Professional. I'm trying to setup a simple network which
will allow me to ssh from one machine to another connected to the
switch. I'm not sure what I forgot to do but whenever I run any
networking program (ping, traceroute, ssh, etc) I get a "no route to
host" error message. What do I need to do to this network so that even
a simple ping is possible?

Thanks

John wrote:

> Hello,
> I'm trying to setup a simple 5 computer network. Four of the machines
> run Slackware Linux 9 (2.4.20) and the 5th runs Slackware 9 and
> Windows XP Professional. I'm trying to setup a simple network which
> will allow me to ssh from one machine to another connected to the
> switch. I'm not sure what I forgot to do but whenever I run any
> networking program (ping, traceroute, ssh, etc) I get a "no route to
> host" error message. What do I need to do to this network so that even
> a simple ping is possible?

Not enought information, but clearly your network setup is not complete.
Have you enabled your network cards and assigned addresses to each?

Also, describe the "switch" beyond merely alluding to it.

--
Paul Lutus
http://www.arachnoid.com

John <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Hello,
> I'm trying to setup a simple 5 computer network. Four of the machines
> run Slackware Linux 9 (2.4.20) and the 5th runs Slackware 9 and
> Windows XP Professional. I'm trying to setup a simple network which
> will allow me to ssh from one machine to another connected to the
> switch. I'm not sure what I forgot to do but whenever I run any
> networking program (ping, traceroute, ssh, etc) I get a "no route to
> host" error message. What do I need to do to this network so that even
> a simple ping is possible?

Sounds as if your network isn't configured yet, what have you done already?

Post the output of:

$ /sbin/ifconfig
$ netstat -rn

--
Michael Heiming

Remove +SIGNS and www. if you expect an answer, sorry for
inconvenience, but I get tons of SPAM

John wrote:

> Hello,
> I'm trying to setup a simple 5 computer network. Four of the machines
> run Slackware Linux 9 (2.4.20) and the 5th runs Slackware 9 and
> Windows XP Professional. I'm trying to setup a simple network which
> will allow me to ssh from one machine to another connected to the
> switch. I'm not sure what I forgot to do but whenever I run any
> networking program (ping, traceroute, ssh, etc) I get a "no route to
> host" error message. What do I need to do to this network so that even
> a simple ping is possible?

How are they connected? Can you ping the computer's own interface?
A little more info would help.

--

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To reply to this message, replace everything to the left of "@" with
james.knott.

Michael Heiming <michael+(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Post the output of:

> $ /sbin/ifconfig
> $ netstat -rn

The output of:

# mii-tool -v

Would also be useful, assuming newer versions of Slackware have it,
the old Slackware 7.0 machine I just checked didn't...

--
Jim Buchanan (E-Mail Removed)
=================== http://www.buchanan1.net/ ==========================
"Where...the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30
tons, computers in the future may have 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps
weigh just 1-1/2 tons." -Popular Mechanics, March 1949
================= Visit: http://www.thehungersite.com ==================

(E-Mail Removed) wrote:
> Michael Heiming <michael+(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> > Post the output of:

> > $ /sbin/ifconfig
> > $ netstat -rn

> The output of:

> # mii-tool -v

> Would also be useful, assuming newer versions of Slackware have it,
> the old Slackware 7.0 machine I just checked didn't...

Yep, but another problem with mii-*, sadly not even all nic driver
support it.

--
Michael Heiming

Remove +SIGNS and www. if you expect an answer, sorry for
inconvenience, but I get tons of SPAM

Sorry for the vague description. Here is a better picture of the
situation.

The setup is a small and very loosly parallel cluster. The five
computers are connected through a Linksys 10/100 5 port switch. The IP
scheme is 172.16/16 (the 192.168 and 10 IP ranges are in use by other
networks). They can ping (or do anything else network related) to
themselves using both their 172.16.1.* address and their 127.0.0.1
address. They cannot however reach other computers on the network.

The first computer is the controller and it has 2 NICs. The first one
is not an issue as it connects to my LAN (not this little setup) just
fine. The second card appears to work fine. This machine, just like
the others, will not talk to any computer on the switch but itself.

The other computers have just 1 NIC. I'm beginning to suspect that the
problem is with these and not the main computer. The following is the
output of the requested commands on these 4 machines.

ifconfig:

eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr <the mac address is here>
inet addr:<the IP address is here> Bcast:172.16.255.255
Mask:255.255.0.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX packets:12 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:12 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:1120 (1.0 kb) TX bytes:1120 (1.0 b)


netstat -rn:

Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window
irtt Iface
172.16.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 40 0
0 eth0
127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 U 40 0
0 lo
0.0.0.0 172.16.1.5 0.0.0.0 UG 40 0
0 eth0

mii-tool -v:

eth0: negotiated 100baseTx-FD, link ok
product info: vendor 00:00:00, model 0, rev 0
basic mode: autonegotiation enabled
basic status: autonegotiation complete, link ok
capabilities: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
advertising: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
link partner: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
flow-control


The IP addresses are:
172.16.1.1
172.16.1.2
172.16.1.3
172.16.1.4
172.16.1.5 (control node)

The four other machines use the 8139too driver for the NICs. I just
looked a dmesg and found that they complain a bunch when the computers
are starting up.
During bootup I get errors on the four machines. Such as:
1.) NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
2.) 8139cp: 10/100 PCI Ethernet driver v0.3.0 (Sep 29, 2002)
3.) In reference to the 8139 driver:
init_module: no such device
insmod 8139cp failed
insmod /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/drivers/net/8139cp.o.gz failed

Note: #2 is not really an error but it comes up about 9 times during
boot so maybe something is wrong there.

There were also mentions of "too much work at interrupt" for IRQ11.

I thought that maybe there was an IRQ conflict so I checked
/proc/interrupts and the other thing listed on IRQ11 is onboard USB
(although the BIOS also listed the video card as using IRQ11). I tried
disabling onboard USB in the BIOS but it still shows up in
/proc/interrupts.

Any ideas?

Thanks so much!

After looking at the info I posted a few days ago, does anyone have an idea?

John wrote:
> Sorry for the vague description. Here is a better picture of the
> situation.
>
> The setup is a small and very loosly parallel cluster. The five
> computers are connected through a Linksys 10/100 5 port switch. The IP
> scheme is 172.16/16 (the 192.168 and 10 IP ranges are in use by other
> networks). They can ping (or do anything else network related) to
> themselves using both their 172.16.1.* address and their 127.0.0.1
> address. They cannot however reach other computers on the network.
>
> The first computer is the controller and it has 2 NICs. The first one
> is not an issue as it connects to my LAN (not this little setup) just
> fine. The second card appears to work fine. This machine, just like
> the others, will not talk to any computer on the switch but itself.
>
> The other computers have just 1 NIC. I'm beginning to suspect that the
> problem is with these and not the main computer. The following is the
> output of the requested commands on these 4 machines.
>
> ifconfig:
>
> eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr <the mac address is here>
> inet addr:<the IP address is here> Bcast:172.16.255.255
> Mask:255.255.0.0
> UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
> RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
> TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
> collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
> RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
>
> lo Link encap:Local Loopback
> inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
> UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
> RX packets:12 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
> TX packets:12 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
> collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
> RX bytes:1120 (1.0 kb) TX bytes:1120 (1.0 b)
>
>
> netstat -rn:
>
> Kernel IP routing table
> Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window
> irtt Iface
> 172.16.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 40 0
> 0 eth0
> 127.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.0.0.0 U 40 0
> 0 lo
> 0.0.0.0 172.16.1.5 0.0.0.0 UG 40 0
> 0 eth0
>
> mii-tool -v:
>
> eth0: negotiated 100baseTx-FD, link ok
> product info: vendor 00:00:00, model 0, rev 0
> basic mode: autonegotiation enabled
> basic status: autonegotiation complete, link ok
> capabilities: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
> advertising: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
> link partner: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
> flow-control
>
>
> The IP addresses are:
> 172.16.1.1
> 172.16.1.2
> 172.16.1.3
> 172.16.1.4
> 172.16.1.5 (control node)
>
> The four other machines use the 8139too driver for the NICs. I just
> looked a dmesg and found that they complain a bunch when the computers
> are starting up.
> During bootup I get errors on the four machines. Such as:
> 1.) NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
> 2.) 8139cp: 10/100 PCI Ethernet driver v0.3.0 (Sep 29, 2002)
> 3.) In reference to the 8139 driver:
> init_module: no such device
> insmod 8139cp failed
> insmod /lib/modules/2.4.20/kernel/drivers/net/8139cp.o.gz failed
>
> Note: #2 is not really an error but it comes up about 9 times during
> boot so maybe something is wrong there.
>
> There were also mentions of "too much work at interrupt" for IRQ11.
>
> I thought that maybe there was an IRQ conflict so I checked
> /proc/interrupts and the other thing listed on IRQ11 is onboard USB
> (although the BIOS also listed the video card as using IRQ11). I tried
> disabling onboard USB in the BIOS but it still shows up in
> /proc/interrupts.
>
> Any ideas?
>
> Thanks so much!
Are you certain that 8139 is the correct driver for your NIC's? If you
are getting no such device errors when the (assumed) driver module for
these nics inserts, it is certain not to work. Typically no such device
(ENODEV) is returned by a driver when the module cannot find the
appropriate device and vendor ids for its device on the pci bus. I'd
grab the 8139 driver source code from the kernel tree, and compare the
pci device and vendor ids against the ids reported for your nic in
/proc/pci.

HTH
Neil

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