Re: networking problem during install

[Bob Galloway <bob@de-fac.to>]

On Tue, Aug 28, 2001 at 10:01:51PM -0700, Bob Galloway wrote:
> > Do you have the installation stuff on the NFS export?  It may be
> > easier to download rescue and root floppies from the potato installers
> > and do a network install.  You'd be using a 2.2 kernel then.
> 
> I considered doing that, but thought that fighting with floppies a
> second time would be more trouble than it was worth.  That was many
> hours ago... I'll give it a go with potato.

Okay.  I just tried again with potato install disks, from the 'compact'
series.  Same problems as with slink.  Great sadness and woe.

A recap:
    - ifconfig reports TX packets, but no RX packets.
    - network card works in other boxes
    - LAN allows two other boxes to network without problems.  Swapping
        cables has no effect; the problem is probably not in the ethernet
        hardware.
    - curiously enough, if I ping from the problem box to a good box
        (2.2 install disks have ping! yay!), I don't see any RX packets
        on the good box, though I see TX packets on the bad box.  (If I
        ping from the good box to the bad box, I see TX packets on the
        good box, and nothing at all on the bad box, as I expected.
        In both cases, I see network activity on the hub coming from
        the box running ping, and nothing from the target box.)

This has me greatly confused.  If the problem is just that the bad
box can't receive packets, then why doesn't a good box report recieved
packets when the bad box pings it?  The hub is reporting packets going
out, so the card on the bad box is sending something out there, but an
otherwise good box doesn't see it.  

I don't get it... it's as if there's two different networks here, one
for the bad box and one for everything else.  That's nuts, since apart
from the host IP (.7 instead of .2) everything in ifconfig/route is the
same in the bad box as it is in this box, which is networking nicely.

Maybe it'll make sense in the morning.  Always, TIA.

-- 
Bob Galloway                  I HAVE POCKETS!