Unable to configure network settings

[tameboy]

Hello

noob to Kubuntu, but worked with Fedora for sometime. Thought I would give Kubuntu a try. Unfortunately getting very frustrated with not being able to manually configure the network settings. I know where the files are and I know what the settings I need are but I don't seem to be able to get root access (or get in to administrator mode). I've tried using kdesudo but that doesn't seem to work.

Is there a easy way to get write permissions for the network configuration files which I am missing. In Fedora I would just use su - and enter the root password.

Thanks for any help!

[dibl]

Re: Unable to configure network settings

You should be able to take care of network settings under KMenu>System Settings and then click whichever utility you need, and click the "Administrator" button on the lower right of the panel, to work with Super User, aka "root" privileges.

However, at the console you can "become" root with

sudo su

and give your password. Be careful, and don't do anything in your user home directory while working in Super User mode.

[toad]

Re: Unable to configure network settings

Well, if you edit on the command line you would do

sudo vi /etc/network/interfaces

Or use nano instead of vi.

If you prefer the gui, you'd press ALT + F2 and type

kdesu kate

to open kate as root.

HTH

[tameboy]

Re: Unable to configure network settings

thanks guys for your replies.

The administrator button doesn't appear on my system settings (I read elsewhere this is a known problem with KDE4 on Kubuntu) and there is no Internet utility in my system settings (just connection preferences, proxy and services discovery)

I tried using sudo vi but for some reason vi doesn't work well. When you go into write mode I get all sorts of different responses to keystrokes which is a bit weird. Anyway nano works fine so thanks for that suggestion. I now have my network configured in terms of IP settings but unfortunately I am getting a :

connect: Network is unreachable

when I try and ping local addresses (or Internet addresses).

Any suggestions for getting access to the system settings Internet GUI or advice about what else to check??

Many Thanks

[dibl]

Re: Unable to configure network settings

Is this a wired connection that you are attempting to set up? It is kind of unusual to see *buntu having any kind of issue with a wired network connection -- is your hardware OK? Here are some questions that come to mind:

- Did it work when booted with a Live Kubuntu CD?
- Has it ever worked correctly, with any OS?
- Does dmesg provide any indication of problem with the network card?
- Anything out of the ordinary with your router or modem or network access?

[tameboy]

Re: Unable to configure network settings

the machine had w2k installed previously and connected fine via the same wired connection.

If I restart the network I get an OK message and no error messages. Not sure if that is what you mean by dmesg - please explain more if there is somewhere else I should be looking for this.

I have other Linux machines on this network with no problems.

Thanks for your help.

[dibl]

Re: Unable to configure network settings

OK, we know that your NIC works with a Windows driver. So, maybe the Linux driver isn't loading, or needs to be manually configured, or something like that.

In a console:

lspci

will show the devices on the PCI bus, and should show the make and model of the NIC card or chip. This might reveal a chip that needs a special driver configuration, although that is pretty rare for wired interfaces.

dmesg

will show the messages from the last bootup, including errors when loading device drivers, checking devices, etc.

[tameboy]

Re: Unable to configure network settings

many thanks for your help...

$ lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-760 [IGD4-1P] System Controller (rev 14)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] AMD-760 [IGD4-1P] AGP Bridge
00:07.0 ISA bridge: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super South] (rev 40)
00:07.1 IDE interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/B/VT823x/A/C PIPC Bus Master IDE (rev 06)
00:07.2 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 1a)
00:07.3 USB Controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82xxxxx UHCI USB 1.1 Controller (rev 1a)
00:07.4 SMBus: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 [Apollo Super ACPI] (rev 40)
00:07.5 Multimedia audio controller: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C686 AC97 Audio Controller (rev 50)
00:0f.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc Rage XL AGP 2X (rev 27)

dmesg - output too big to include. Can you add attachments in this forum - can't see an obvious way to do so.

[tameboy]

Re: Unable to configure network settings

put output from dmesg here:

http://www.google.com/notebook/publi...xBQwoQ2P2ht70j

[dibl]

Re: Unable to configure network settings

00:0f.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)

There it is.

OK, I recommend searching Ubuntu Forum (because of its vast user base) on that chip, and see if others have had your problem with it, and any solutions. Because you can't even ping the net, I don't think your problem has anything to do with KDE, even though KDE 4 isn't very helpful to your efforts to adjust settings. So whatever works in Ubuntu should work in Kubuntu (the underlying Linux kernels and GNU filesystems are the same).

[dibl]

Re: Unable to configure network settings

The dmesg output says you're good to go:

[  21.594138] 8139too Fast Ethernet driver 0.9.28
[  21.594239] ACPI: PCI Interrupt 0000:00:0f.0[A] -> GSI 19 (level, low) ->IRQ 16
[  21.594777] eth0: RealTek RTL8139 at 0xec00, 00:c1:26:0e:4d:c3, IRQ 16
[  21.594781] eth0: Identified 8139 chip type 'RTL-8100B/8139D'
[  21.606172] 8139cp: 10/100 PCI Ethernet driver v1.3 (Mar 22, 2004)

and later

[  46.872738] eth0: link up, 100Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x45E1
.
.
.
[  89.639603] eth0: no IPv6 routers present

So that's weird ... a correctly installed and configured ethernet card that can't ping. I think we've reached the (not very distant) limits of my networking expertise, or lack thereof.

[yulester]

Re: Unable to configure network settings

I'm running off memory here, but one thing to look at

ifconfig

What do you see as the results from this.

[tameboy]

Re: Unable to configure network settings

ifconfig...

eth0   Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:c1:26:0e:4d:c3
     inet6 addr: fe80::2c1:26ff:fe0e:4dc3/64 Scope:Link
     UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
     RX packets:249 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
     TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
     collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
     RX bytes:38442 (37.5 KB) TX bytes:468 (468.0 B)
     Interrupt:16 Base address:0xec00

lo    Link encap:Local Loopback
     inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
     inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
     UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 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:0
     RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

Hoping there is something in there that gives a clue.

[toad]

Re: Unable to configure network settings

Try

sudo ifdown eth0

followed by

sudo dhclient eth0

and see if you can ping after that.

vi is a bit cryptic, I agree, but the geek factor is unsurpassed

[tameboy]

Re: Unable to configure network settings

I can ping after following the instructions above, and there is even a very slow connection to our practice intranet if I use an IP address rather than the domain name.

What does that tell us? - Obviously the network card is connected and working but how do I configure static IP addresses and get it to use correct DNS addresses?

Many thanks for your continues support - we are getting somewhere!