I can't get any networking to work (wintel to lintel)

[Geoff Williams]

Hello,

I'm a networking newbie... (only installed Linux 4 weeks ago)

I just want to connect my win98 pc to my
linux pc so I can do cgi/perl/db dev.

All I need is to get web, ftp and telnet
working.

I have two PC's. One with Win98 and the other
with Red Hat Linux 5.2 (server installation)

I've got a network card in each PC and they
seem to be installed correctly. The two cards
are connected by 1 metre of coax. Terminators
on each end.

On the Linux pc I can telnet, ftp and web
to my Linux pc. (by connecting to 127.0.0.1)

When I tried to telnet, ftp, web from win98 pc
I get nothing. Telnet times out, ftp refuses
connection and www gives a dns error.

From DOS I tried >ping 127.0.0.1 and
it responded successfully. I noticed a
file called hosts.sam in c:\windows
containing an entry...
127.0.0.1 localhost

I tried >ping localhost and still it seemed
to work. I began to wonder if DOS was pinging
itself. I disconnected the coax and pinged
again. DOS reported 4 succesful packets!

Does anybody have any idea what I've done wrong. I guess there's a lot of config info
that I haven't included here.

In the IP settings for my win98 NIC I have
assigned IP:192.168.1.2
and ifconfig says that my linux NIC is set
to IP:192.168.1.1

On the Win98 pc I can't ping either of those
two IP's.

On the Linux pc I can ping both.

Would the fact that the Win NIC is PCI and the
Linux NIC is ISA, be a problem???

I put ALL: ALL in to the hosts.allow file but
that didn't fix it.

A friend said to try...
$ route add default eth0

...but that didn't fix it either.

I've tried everything I've found here on ITRC
forum. Some people mention xinetd.conf but that
doesn't seem to exist on my linux pc.

Any help would be much appreciated. I'd like to
get back to more fun things like perl. :)

Geoff Williams
www.webfactory.net

[Mark Fenton · Accepted solution]

Geoff, where do I start?

Win98:
ipconfig /all should show the settings currently in play. Things to look for:

Default gateway should be set to address of your linux box -- even if you're not really going out to the internet.

DNS -- probably want that set to your linux box as well or disabled.

Host table: look in \windows\system32\drivers\etc for the hosts file (no extension) edit this to include the names you want to address your linux box by:

127.0.0.1 localhost
192.168.1.1 my.domain.local redhat5.2 other.aliases

192.168.1.2 my.win98.computername alias.thereof

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Linux box:

ensure that you have telnet/http/ftp enabled.

RH5.2 uses /etc/inetd.conf . Make sure the following lines (or similar) are extant:
ftp stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd in.ftpd -l -a
telnet stream tcp nowait root /usr/sbin/tcpd in.telnetd

ensure you are running a web server on the linux machine

ps aux |grep httpd

should return some output, if not you'll need to start the web server so it will listen for requests.

This should be enough to get you going. I note that you do not mention an internet connection. If you want to share one between the two computers, that's not too awfully difficult, but I'd have to research the setup under RH 5.2 -- haven't got one of those around just now to test...

[Geoff Williams]

Thanks Mark.

I've never heard of ipconfig before. It output:



Windows 98 IP Configuration



Host Name . . . . . . . . . : GEOFF WILLIAMS

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . : 202.147.135.10

202.147.135.20

Node Type . . . . . . . . . : Broadcast

NetBIOS Scope ID. . . . . . :

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . : No

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . : No

NetBIOS Resolution Uses DNS : No



0 Ethernet adapter :



Description . . . . . . . . : PPP Adapter.

Physical Address. . . . . . : 44-45-53-54-00-00

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . : Yes

IP Address. . . . . . . . . : 202.147.131.48

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . : 202.147.131.48

DHCP Server . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.255

Primary WINS Server . . . . :

Secondary WINS Server . . . :

Lease Obtained. . . . . . . : 01 01 80 12:00:00 AM

Lease Expires . . . . . . . : 01 01 80 12:00:00 AM



1 Ethernet adapter :



Description . . . . . . . . : CN930E PCI I/O Mode Ethernet Adapt

Physical Address. . . . . . : 00-80-AD-91-64-8B

DHCP Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

IP Address. . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.2

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0

Default Gateway . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1

Primary WINS Server . . . . :

Secondary WINS Server . . . :

Lease Obtained. . . . . . . :

Lease Expires . . . . . . . :

===================END================

I don't know why there are 2 ethernet entries
when I only have one network card. Perhaps
the first one (0) is like 'lo' on linux.

I can ping both IP address of each ethernet
adapter listed above from DOS. But I still
can't ping to linux at 192.168.1.1

And I can't ping to DOS from linux.

FTP and telnet are enabled in linux and the
webserver is running. I guess I wouldn't be
able to use these services from the linux box
if they weren't running. But I can use them
from linux so they must be running.

re: internet connection: I've only got a modem
on the win98 box, I may share an ADSL
connection between the two in the future. But
I'll leave it for now. I just want to be able
to connect the two together and use ftp/telnet/
web.

My linux box previously had win98 on it and
I could see each pc from the other in windows
network neighborhood so I know the cable
is working.

But the 2 machines are behaving as if there
were no cable at all.

Also why does the ipconfig output have dns
entries? I've never provided any dns ip's
in the network control panel applet.
I don't think my problem is to do with dns.
I'm just using ip addresses not names.

With this line...

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . : No

What effect does that have? Could that be
a problem?

Gee, I wish my Amiga never blew up.

[Geoff Williams]

Ooops...

Mark,

I assigned 8 points and maybe should have
assigned 7, as I still have the problem
of not being able to ping each box.

Is there an electrical way that I can test
that data is being sent out of the cards,
eg. using a multimeter?

I notice that there is a green LED on the
back of the win98 nic. I've never seen it
light up. When should it light? Constantly,
periodically or only when transmitting?

[Mark Fenton]

Geoff,

Depending on your NIC, you probably will have at least two lights, one will indicate "link" the other, which will probably flash, would indicate activity.

As to why you have two ethernet adapters listed -- the first one is your modem (ppp adapter in win98 parliance) and the second, which has the 192.168.1.2 address would be your NIC.

If you are not actually dialed out to the internet via your modem, you shold probably force it to drop its address, just to be sure that it's not messing things up:

c:> ipconfig /release

should clean its settings, returning a success message that all addresses were released. Running
c:> ipconfig /all
again after that should return an unconfigured modem (ppp adapter) and the static configuration of the NIC.

At this point, try pinging the linux box again.


As for an electrical test -- I've never looked up the electrical spec for thin ethernet.

Another traffic test that you could employ on the linux box would be to use tcpdump to capture all packets on the ethernet interface.
# tcpdump -f -vv -w -
will dump to the screen, otherwise, replace the - with a file name and it'll dump the packets to a file for examination later. To read them back out,

# tcpdump -f -vv -r filename |more

should do the trick.

On the linux box, check /var/log/messages for errors related to the network card. (driver fialing to load, etc). If the driver loaded, and there are no complaints about the NIC itself, and the windows box is not complaining about its card, the only thing left, logically is the cabling -- either the cable itself or its terminators.

Best regards.

Mark

[Geoff Williams]

Mark,

I still can't ping!

I built another win98 box, and connected it
to my main win98 box, and they can ping
eachother fine. So the cable works. I try to
ping my linux box with each win98 machine and
I get 100% packet loss.

I consulted several local computer 'experts'
and they don't know what the problem is.

I've tried several NICs on linux and still
no ping.

It would seem that the problem is on the linux
box. What could it be?

Please help!!!

Geoff.

[Mark Fenton]

Wow, Geoff,
that's a long time to be without networking!

So we know that the NIC on the Windows 98 box works, and is properly configured, and that the cable you are using is good.

We have not yet determined the health of the NIC on the Linux box (but you said that it used to work back when Mr. Linux was running Windows 98) under linux.

Hmm...

Run tcpdump (see previous posts) and check to see if any packets are actually reaching the linux box.

Can you ping from linux box to windows 98?

Does dmesg report any errors related to the NIC?

Which NIC are you using? Which driver?

I'm game, but need some more info to narrow the research possibilities...

[frederick van targero]

hi,

i think it is automatic if you only want to have the network running. ignore all items as ftp priviously, i think, if you net-card is ok, you must can use
# ifconfig eth0 yourip
in the same sub-net of you win.

of course you can set up the win's ip in network(do not tell me you do not know how to do). if the two computer can ping each other, then you can go to the next steps.

as for the ftp,telnet and other like this, they all services in linux, please try for xinet of inet with the files
/etc/services
/etc/xinetd/setupscripts //here there are many files
seems it can not discript completely right here.

[John Russell_6]

Hi Geoff,

What network cards do you have ? I vaguely remember from a while ago I had a similar problem (worked with 98 but didn't with Linux) when I had a 3C509 card in. Finally traced the problem in that when installing Linux it had defaulted to using the card's RJ45 port and not the co-ax port. As you mention that you are using co-ax this may be the case, also the lights on your nics shouldn't be on at all if you're using co-ax as they're only for the RJ45 port.

Hope this helps.

John.

[Geoff Williams]

OK,

I don't know the real name of each nic I've
tried.

Dave: The linux box used to be a win98 box and
now it has linux on it. It never had both
os's on it at once.

Dmesg reports no errors about the nic. It finds
the nic OK.

I think the driver is called ne.o for ne2000
cards. It loads as a module.

The idea that the nic might be defaulting to
the rj45 connector sounds interesting to me.

That might be the problem. OK, so then how
would I go about changing it to use the
coax bnc connector?

Thanks for all the help so far.

Does arp play a role in this?

ps. The only nic that I've got that has only
the bnc and no rj45 on it is the card that
came with this box but wont install under linux. Bugger.

I better build another linux box and see if
it works on that.

Geoff.

[Geoff Williams]

I Solved It!

From the last post I assumed that my linux box was using the RJ45
port. I couldn't work out how to change it to use the BNC port.

I had a coax cable to start with.

So I bought a second-hand Intel NIC (PCI) for $AUS10 which had
_only_ the RJ45 port on it.

I installed this NIC on my windows box, Windows installed a driver
for me no probs. I bought a CAT5 crossover cable, connected the
winbox to linux box, I set...

+ Linux as 192.168.1.1

+ Windows as 192.168.1.2

And it now pings each other from both PC's command lines.

I hit http://192.168.1.1 from a web browser under windows and
the default "It Worked!" Page appeared.

I tried to connect to linux with a telnet client under windows,
it takes approx. 90 seconds to connect (why so long?) but it
does connect.

I tried to connect to linux with an FTP client under windows and
I get this error...

- -
connecting to 192.168.1.1 ...
Connected to 192.168.1.1 port 21
Timer cancelled blocking call
rl-recv: Blocking call cancelled

connection failed
- -

Does anybody know what that means and how to correct it?

My linux setup is SERVER installation class RHL 5.2 I can't find
anything that would deny an FTP connection. Please help.

Some lessons learnt...

If you are using second hand network cards - only use cards that
have one type of networking connection, the option to change
ports may have come on the manufacturers disk for that card, and
normally these disks aren't supplied when buying second hand NICs.

Thanks for the help.

[Mark Fenton]

Geoff,

I did a quick search on Google and found a couple of hits which suggest that you should set the client to enable passive connection. What does ftpd log on the linux box?

hth
Mark

[Geoff Williams]

Hi Mark,

I'm using WS-FTP32 on windows. I found an
option to called use PASV transfer mode.

That made no difference.

Here's a tail of /var/log/messages...

(sorry the lines are not complete)

-----
[root@positron geoff]# tail -f /var/log/messages
Jul 19 23:07:11 positron ftpd[1319]: User unknown timed out after 900 seconds a2
Jul 19 23:07:11 positron ftpd[1319]: FTP session closed
Jul 19 23:07:46 positron innfeed[420]: decwrl checkpoint seconds 3124 spooled 00
Jul 19 23:07:46 positron innfeed[420]: uunet checkpoint seconds 3124 spooled 0 0
Jul 19 23:10:45 positron ftpd[1831]: FTP session closed
Jul 19 23:11:57 positron PAM_pwdb[1847]: (login) session opened for user geoff )
Jul 19 23:11:57 positron login[1847]: LOGIN ON ttyp1 BY geoff FROM 192.168.1.2
Jul 19 23:11:57 positron PAM_pwdb[1847]: (login) session closed for user geoff
Jul 19 23:11:57 positron innd[402]: ME time 303830 idle 303829(2) artwrite 0(0)
Jul 19 23:12:05 positron PAM_pwdb[1858]: (su) session opened for user root by g)
-----

Approx. one minute after WS-FTP says 'connection refused' I get ...

positron ftpd[1831]: FTP session closed

in the /var/log/messages file.

How do I find out what options ftpd is started with?

Thanx.

Geoff.

[Geoff Williams]

When I connect to ftp from the linux
box to itself, I notice that linux
runs 'ftpd'. I get a copnnection. OK.

When I try to connect to ftp via my network
from my win98pc, linux runs 'in.ftpd'

But wont connect.

Does that give any clues as to why I can't
connect to ftp from my winpc?

Thanks.

Geoff.

[Vernon Brown_2]

On some PC's you have to go into BIOS and set the Operating System flag to "Other" instead of "Win 98", otherwise the PC assigns interrupt 0 to the eth0 card. I had that problem.

[Geoff Williams]

The ethernet card is on IRQ 10 I think.
It's definitely not on IRQ 0.

I'm sure there's just some simple software
config that needs alteration to allow
FTP to connect. Web and telnet work OK.

Any clues?

Geoff.

[Geoff Williams]

I tried ftp://192.168.1.1
in internet explorer on the winbox.
It takes about 3 minutes to connect to the
linux box. I can download but it takes ages
to get a one line text file of about 20 chars.

It wont let me upload.

Any clues?

Geoff.

[bengt_3]

it's correct that linux uses the in.ftpd when you try to connect from the windows box.

..and IE is not the best ftp-client to use.

have you created a own user?? don't use root when you are trying to use the ftp service.. if you absolutly want to use root,, you must remark the root account from /etc/ftpusers.

don't use two def.gateways! on your win machine. you only have to use the one from your isp the 200.somethin.

you should be able to ping the host ip on both machines if you can't do that something with the network cards doesn't work properly.