Voange WRT54GP2 router to Fedora Core 5 - eth0 won't get IP address and won't start

Issue: Cannot get Fedora Core 5 computer to boot up eth0 and get IP and DNS
addresses from my Vonage Linksys router, WRT54GP2. Windows XP machines boot
and get connected with no problem.


I have a Fedora Core 5 server that I have always used on my broadband
connection. I am using Comcast high speed cable with their modem, a
Scientific Atlanta WebSTAR. Previously, I would connect my modem directly
to my FC5 box on a network card, configured as eth0, and have DHCP enabled
to get the IP address and the DNS server info. I have a second NIC setup as
eth1 and this would connect to a hub and into that hub I would connect 2 XP
Pro machines. I used Firestarter firewall to setup NAT for the home LAN and
Firestarter would enable DHCP to the hub, where any computer you plugged
into the hub would be online if you had setup the network on those
computers as "Automatic". This worked great and I had not problems with
this setup. Very, very good setup, I could run my apache server for my 3
FQNS and also run vsftpd for my ftp server. This was so freaking good
because the Linux machine had the real IP address and thus could be reached
from the internet and the servers worked really well.

Now I need to find another telephone company to get my home phone working
again, I have billing issues with Bellsouth that are not going to be
resloved any time soon in this lifetime but God knows I really tried to
work things out with Bellsouth. They are stubborn, inflexible, and just
darn right mean. I give up on them. Since I always have a good broadband
connection in my house, I decided to give Vonage a try for the $25 a month,
all you can eat telephone service. Voange, by the way, is freaking
fantastic, no BS, low price, and it really is God's gift in my situation.

To use Vonage, I have to have an adapter connected directly to my cable
modem where my home phone plugs in and then the Ethernet cable goes on to
my setup. Now of course this will not work anymore, considering that I need
a real IP address for the Linux box. The vonage adapter is a Linksys
Broadband routher, WRT54GP2, which has 1 Ethernet input jack and 3 Ethernet
output jacks. Here is the device:
http://tinyurl.com/qt4od

What I want to do now is have all 3 of my computers plugged into the
Linksys and allow them to setup themselves with automatic settings for the
Windows machines and configure my Fedora box to connect with DHCP to get an
IP address and DNS server addresses. Then I can setup the router to forward
the server ports or if I can find it, put the Linux box in the DMZ,
although I cannot really find that setup in the browser admin screen.

Anyway, the issue is that the Fedora box will not connect to this routher.
When I boot, eth0 failed to get an IP address and thus in disabled. The
computer is not online anymore since connecting the Linksys router in
between the cable modem and the Fedora Box. It just does not work. I can
even try "service network restart" and "Determining IP information for
eth0" times out and fails. The Windows XP machines have no problem at all
with connecting to the Linksys, they boot fine and work great on the
Internet.

One thing that I have noticed is that I have always used 192.168.0.xxx for
my home LAN NAT addresses. The Linux box used 192.168.0.1 as it's local
address and the other machines on the LAN fall into that range. The Linksys
router on the other hand, dishes out IP addresses in the 192.168.15.xxx
range, starting at 192.168.15.100 and is set to go to 192.168.15.50.

What is the problem here and what do I have to do in order to get my Fedora
Core 5 server to get an IP address from the linksys? This really bites, I
desperatly need to get this Linux box back online and am stumped, why won't
it get an IP address from the router?

I would really like, in the end, to connect my setup as such:

Cable to modem
Modem to Vonage router, Linksys WRT54GP2
Linksys to Fedora Box on eth0
Fedora to hub on eth1
hub to other computers on the LAN

I would prefer this because I could transfer large files, like a DVD or CD
image file and with all the computers connected via the 3com hub 8/TP100
because that sucker was fast. I could transfer a 1Gb file in less than a
minute, with the network connecting the computers using the LInksys, I
would have to wait almost an hour to transfer a file.

Somebody please help, how can I get my Fedora box to boot up and get
connected to a Linksys router?

Thank you and Happy New Year.
--
~Ohmster
theohmster at comcast dot net
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Ohmster <notareal@emailaddress.> wrote in
news:Xns98A6E1E4FEE5AMyBigKitty@216.196.97.131:

> Issue: Cannot get Fedora Core 5 computer to boot up eth0 and get IP
> and DNS addresses from my Vonage Linksys router, WRT54GP2. Windows XP
> machines boot and get connected with no problem.

For goodness sakes. Found the problem. My network cards reversed. eth0 is
now eth1 and eth1 is now eth9.

Solution: Switch the cables. Duh!

Oh I feel so stupid for overlooking this. :P
--
~Ohmster
theohmster at comcast dot net
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Ohmster wrote:

> Somebody please help, how can I get my Fedora box to boot up and get
> connected to a Linksys router?

Linksys routers sometimes do not play well with Linux and you need to help
out a bit;

Try editing the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file and add the
line entry; GATEWAY=The Routers IP address here

Also check the /etc/resolv.conf file and make sure it uses the new
nameserver address's

It might be a good idea to use a static IP address on the Linux system for
the DMZ

--
Contained within the Microsoft EULA;
This Limited Warranty is void if failure of the Product has resulted
from accident, abuse, misapplication, abnormal use or a virus.

In message <Xns98A6E1E4FEE5AMyBigKitty@216.196.97.131>
Ohmster <notareal@emailaddress.> wrote:

<snip>

> What I want to do now is have all 3 of my computers plugged into the
> Linksys and allow them to setup themselves with automatic settings for the
> Windows machines and configure my Fedora box to connect with DHCP to get an
> IP address and DNS server addresses. Then I can setup the router to forward
> the server ports or if I can find it, put the Linux box in the DMZ,
> although I cannot really find that setup in the browser admin screen.

Page 41 of the user guide - Applications and Gaming - DMZ
seems to have what you need.

>
> Anyway, the issue is that the Fedora box will not connect to this routher.
> When I boot, eth0 failed to get an IP address and thus in disabled. The
> computer is not online anymore since connecting the Linksys router in
> between the cable modem and the Fedora Box. It just does not work. I can
> even try "service network restart" and "Determining IP information for
> eth0" times out and fails. The Windows XP machines have no problem at all
> with connecting to the Linksys, they boot fine and work great on the
> Internet.
>
> One thing that I have noticed is that I have always used 192.168.0.xxx for
> my home LAN NAT addresses. The Linux box used 192.168.0.1 as it's local
> address and the other machines on the LAN fall into that range. The Linksys
> router on the other hand, dishes out IP addresses in the 192.168.15.xxx
> range, starting at 192.168.15.100 and is set to go to 192.168.15.50.

I suspect a typo here - 100 to 250 maybe?

>
> What is the problem here and what do I have to do in order to get my Fedora
> Core 5 server to get an IP address from the linksys? This really bites, I
> desperatly need to get this Linux box back online and am stumped, why won't
> it get an IP address from the router?

I don't know Fedora. Do you have any of the IP setup fields defined,
e.g. do you still have a netmask or a gateway defined? That might
interfere with DHCP.

However if you want to use the DMZ facility the manual says you need
to use a static address, so I would do that. Just make sure it is
outside the DHCP range.

With DMZ your server has an address which is in your LAN range, and
the router forwards requests to it. Those requests come in on the
router's IP address. The issue here is that you need a static address
on the WAN side of the router - or use dyndns.org. The remote clients
need a way to find your router.

>
> I would really like, in the end, to connect my setup as such:
>
> Cable to modem
> Modem to Vonage router, Linksys WRT54GP2
> Linksys to Fedora Box on eth0
> Fedora to hub on eth1
> hub to other computers on the LAN

Fedora - static on Eth0 and DMZ configured. Run a DHCP server on
Fedora, supplying addresses on Eth1. Since you are using DMZ, the
Linksys firewall will not be protecting you very much, so you will
need the fedora to act as firewall for the rest of your network.

You'll need to route on Fedora, so you need to use two private network
ranges. I suggest 192.168.15.x for the linksys-fedora link, and
10.0.0.x for the LAN

>
> I would prefer this because I could transfer large files, like a DVD or CD
> image file and with all the computers connected via the 3com hub 8/TP100
> because that sucker was fast. I could transfer a 1Gb file in less than a
> minute, with the network connecting the computers using the LInksys, I
> would have to wait almost an hour to transfer a file.

This puzzles me a bit. Your existing switch seems to be transferring
at about 150MBit/sec - assuming it is 10/100 that is very good going.
The Linksys is also 10/100, so the only thing I could see slowing it
up is the firewall function - and that should be configured so it
doesn't affect lan-lan traffic.

>
> Somebody please help, how can I get my Fedora box to boot up and get
> connected to a Linksys router?
>
> Thank you and Happy New Year.

Best wishes, and good luck.

--
Alan Adams, from Northamptonshire
(E-Mail Removed)
http://www.nckc.org.uk/

Lenard <lenard@127.0.0.1> wrote in
news:IOOkh.12149$(E-Mail Removed) t:

> Ohmster wrote:
>
>> Somebody please help, how can I get my Fedora box to boot up and get
>> connected to a Linksys router?
>
> Linksys routers sometimes do not play well with Linux and you need to
> help out a bit;

Hmmm, it seemed to work quite well when I first installed it, then one
day, it would not work anymore and there was nothing but problems. I
could not get connected for beans. I gave up for the time being and
plugged the two doze machines directly into the Linksys. The linux box
would not pull DNS or an IP, even though the doze boxes had no problems
at all getting online. Strange.

> Try editing the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file and add
> the line entry; GATEWAY=The Routers IP address here

Hmmm, it works really well now though since I figured out that by
switching the Ethernet cables around (eth0 & eth1). Here is the ifcfg-
eth0 script as it is, works great:

[root@ohmster network-scripts]# cat ifcfg-eth0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
HWADDR=00:E0:7D:9A:0D:0C
DEVICE=eth0
MTU=1500
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
BROADCAST=192.218.15.150
IPADDR=""
NETWORK=""
ONBOOT=yes
[root@ohmster network-scripts]#

> Also check the /etc/resolv.conf file and make sure it uses the new
> nameserver address's

What nameserver? The ones that come from Comcast via dhcp?

> It might be a good idea to use a static IP address on the Linux system
> for the DMZ
>

Oh yeah that would be lovely but Comcast does not offer it on their
broadband, at least not for what I am paying. 8Mbps costs $55 a month but
for the first year, you pay only $25 or $27 if you do not buy your own
modem.

It works really good now Lenard, I can even use the Linux box as the home
LAN router which I like better than the Linksys. With the 3com hub, I can
move a 1Gb file across the LAN in like just a minute or two. When I was
using the linksys, it would take up to an hour. Thanks for your insight.
Happy New Year Lenard!

--
~Ohmster
theohmster at comcast dot net
Put "messageforohmster" in message body
to pass my spam filter.

Alan Adams <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in
news:(E-Mail Removed):

> In message <Xns98A6E1E4FEE5AMyBigKitty@216.196.97.131>
> Ohmster <notareal@emailaddress.> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>> What I want to do now is have all 3 of my computers plugged into the
>> Linksys and allow them to setup themselves with automatic settings
>> for the Windows machines and configure my Fedora box to connect with
>> DHCP to get an IP address and DNS server addresses. Then I can setup
>> the router to forward the server ports or if I can find it, put the
>> Linux box in the DMZ, although I cannot really find that setup in the
>> browser admin screen.
>
> Page 41 of the user guide - Applications and Gaming - DMZ
> seems to have what you need.

Oh wow, you are right! I did put my machine in the DMZ but to tell you the
truth, I really don't see much of a difference now with it. I use port
forwarding in the linux firewall to make stuff work on the doze machines
and open the ports on the linux firewall (Firestarter) for what I need,
e.g.: httpd, vsftpd, pop3, etc.

What is the DMZ supposed to do, Alan?

>>
>> Anyway, the issue is that the Fedora box will not connect to this
>> routher. When I boot, eth0 failed to get an IP address and thus in
>> disabled. The computer is not online anymore since connecting the
>> Linksys router in between the cable modem and the Fedora Box. It just
>> does not work. I can even try "service network restart" and
>> "Determining IP information for eth0" times out and fails. The
>> Windows XP machines have no problem at all with connecting to the
>> Linksys, they boot fine and work great on the Internet.
>>
>> One thing that I have noticed is that I have always used
>> 192.168.0.xxx for my home LAN NAT addresses. The Linux box used
>> 192.168.0.1 as it's local address and the other machines on the LAN
>> fall into that range. The Linksys router on the other hand, dishes
>> out IP addresses in the 192.168.15.xxx range, starting at
>> 192.168.15.100 and is set to go to 192.168.15.50.
>
> I suspect a typo here - 100 to 250 maybe?

Yep, typo. That should read:
The Linksys router on the other hand, dishes out IP addresses in the
192.168.15.xxx range, starting at 192.168.15.100 and is set to go to
192.168.15.150. The default amount of DHCP addresses is 50, but you can put
in any number you like.

>>
>> What is the problem here and what do I have to do in order to get my
>> Fedora Core 5 server to get an IP address from the linksys? This
>> really bites, I desperatly need to get this Linux box back online and
>> am stumped, why won't it get an IP address from the router?
>
> I don't know Fedora. Do you have any of the IP setup fields defined,
> e.g. do you still have a netmask or a gateway defined? That might
> interfere with DHCP.

Alan, this setup has worked perfectly up to the day when all hell broke
loose, for no apparent reason, and then nothing would connect or work. No
internet, no home LAN, and anything else you can think of. The settings did
not just "go bad". Something else must've happened. I started out by going
basic and just trying to get the Linux box to pull and IP and DNS from the
Linksys. The Windows machines had no problem with it, what is Linux looking
for that it does not see?

I decided to use Webmin to disable the eth0 and eth1 interfaces. No sense
in having them both up and confusing things when all I am trying to do now
is to get the darned thing to work. I ended up shuting off eth0 and did not
notice any difference. I could still connect to the Linksys config page
with Firefox. I then disaled eth2 and that was all it took to render Webmin
useless. I could no longer connect to the router. I turned eth0 back on,
that is the one that goes to the Linksys and nothing happened. I still
could not access my adminstration.

Hmmm, something aweful scwewy awound here. I shutoff eth0 and enabled eth1.
Now I could connect to the linksys. <applause>

This means that the network interfaces must have swapped out in the linux
box. Easy enough to test, just switch the eth0 and eth1 cables. It worked,
it was just the network got confused. After switching the Ethernet cables,
we were back in business.

> However if you want to use the DMZ facility the manual says you need
> to use a static address, so I would do that. Just make sure it is
> outside the DHCP range.
>
> With DMZ your server has an address which is in your LAN range, and
> the router forwards requests to it. Those requests come in on the
> router's IP address. The issue here is that you need a static address
> on the WAN side of the router - or use dyndns.org. The remote clients
> need a way to find your router.
[snip]

Forgive me Alan, I have been working very hard and have fallen asleep at
the keyboard 3 times already. I wakup and see like hundreds of whatever
character I had my finger on all over the screen.

I will come back when I am not so tired. Thanks for your insight.

Happy New Year!
--
~Ohmster
theohmster at comcast dot net
Put "messageforohmster" in message body
to pass my spam filter.