Very confusing network problem!
I have encountered a networking problem that has me just stumped, so I
wonder if anyone could lend some thoughts. My post is long to try to give
enough detail to help figure out what is going on; I appreciate anyone who
can read this and lend some thoughts.
Here's the background: The system is debian testing. Previously, it used an
MSI K7T-266 MB / AMD Athlon XP processor, with a Linksys 10/100 NIC. THe
kernel was a self-compiled 2.4.21 from the debian kernel-sources, and I was
also playing with a 2.6.0-test4 for about a week now. Everything has worked
fine. However, in a fit up upgrade-frenzy, last night I swapped out that
MB/processor and installed a new ASUS P4P800 (intel 865 chipset, onboad 3com
3c940 10/100/1000MB NIC) with a P4-2.4GHz. Strangely (or not so strangely, I
don't know yet) the 2.6.0-test4 kernel that I had precompiled (before
swapping the MB) ready to go for a P4 processor doesn't boot with so many
error messages, going by so fast, that I cannot even start to work on that.
THe stock installed debian 2.4.18-bf24 also doesn't boot (which I find
strange), getting through with the loading the kernel line and then just
rebooting. Odd. Anyway, my precompiled 2.4.21 kernel for P4 does boot, both
with HT enabled and disabled (the kernel is compiled for SMP support) and I
am up and running KDE.
I downloaded the driver for the onboard NIC from ASUS's website (yep, they
had a Linux driver!) and compiled and installed it. THe module loads just
fine, and I can bring up the interface.
Now, here's the problem: I can ping basically anything - my Linksys cable
modem, my in-house file server, the (outside) DNS servers for my ISP,
whatever - as long as I enter the IP address. DNS resolution does not work
(and yes, resolv.conf, etc are properly configured - it's the same setup
that worked fine before I swapped the motherboard). Further, I cannot make
any sort of UDP or TCP connection that works. For instance, I usually
connect to my file server via SSH, but now, when I SSH to the server (using
its IP address) the connection just hangs. THe Linksys cable modem is
configurable via a http interface, but if I try to get the index page:
wget -v http://192.168.1.1/index.html the -v flag shows me that a connection
IS made to the host on port 80, then wget reports that it is downloading the
requested web page, then: nothing, it just hangs forever.
Since it's new hardware and a new driver, the temptation is to assume that
either a) the driver is borked (Jim McCloskey has told me of a patch to
2.4.22 he's using from the 3com website that I can try), or the hardware is
borked (maybe a bad motherboard?). However, since I CAN ping any host
internal or external to my network, that leads me to believe that the
hardware must be working. Doesn't that seem right? If so, why am I unable to
get TCP/UDP connections to fly? (Yes, I checked my .config and I did include
TCP/IP networking, and anyway I shouldn't be able to ping if I didn't).
Any advice/thoughts would be greatly appreciated, because I am totally
stumped on this one.
nl
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