Update ... Re: Ethernet newbee failure

[Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net>]

First I want to thank everyone who sent me a reply, both private and on
the list. I now know 3 different way to create working routing tables.
With regret, this has not resolved the problem. It was John Hasler who
actually resolved things for me. I now have the following routing tables
on both machines:

Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use
Iface
127.0.0.0       *               255.0.0.0       U     0      0        1 lo
10.0.0.0        *               255.0.0.0       U     0      0        0
eth0


I get better results now than ever before, but still can't complete a
ping.

Here are the facts:

1. Each machine can ping itself successfully.

2. A ping to the other machine returns 0 packets to the kernel.

3. The PKT light on the hub blinks while a failed ping is in progress.


The NICs are EtherLink III cards connected through a hub using twisted
pair cable.

Suppositions:

Fact 1 is not useful, as the kernel, seeing the information in the routing
table, has no reason to go to the card to resolve the ping. In this
circumstance the kernel is talking to itself and the ping program, not the
card.

Fact 3 indicates that the ping is getting out of the kernel, into the
card, and onto the cable. When properly configured the card in machine one
gets a reply from the card in machine two, but fails to get that message
to the kernel. (fact 2)

At this point, it is my supposition that the card is responding on another
interrupt from the one it was commanded to use by isapnp, and the driver.
The kernel, the driver, and the isapnp program, all think the card has
been configured for base address 0300, and irq 10, yet no traffic makes it
out of the card into the kernel, suggesting that it is using another
interrupt.

As painful as it seemed at this point, I was ready to try loading the
driver commanding each interrupt that the card might use, hoping to
"stumble" on it by a careful search.

Although the documentation seems to indicate that the only parameter that
I can send to the driver is the irq, modconf says that the io base address
can also be entered. Worse than that, if you try to specify another
interrupt for the driver install, it hangs forever.

I was able to do an insmod including the parrameter, but the results were
not what I expected:

dwarf# insmod 3c509 irq=12
eth0: 3c509 at 0x300 tag 1, 10baseT port, address  00 10 5a de c8 16, IRQ
10.
3c509.c:1.16 2/3/98 becker@cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov


Note that the driver still declares irq 10 rather than the irq 12 that I
requested. Is my syntax faulty?

Ben Pfaff indicated that his card requires a special option before the
kernel can "hear" it. I can find no such indication for the EtherLink III
card, but his experience seems similar to mine. Can anyone clue me in?

Thanks,

Dwarf
--
_-_-_-_-_-   Author of "The Debian Linux User's Guide"  _-_-_-_-_-_-

aka   Dale Scheetz                   Phone:   1 (850) 656-9769
      Flexible Software              11000 McCrackin Road
      e-mail:  dwarf@polaris.net     Tallahassee, FL  32308

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