Networking problem - Fedora 8

[nbc]

I burned a Fedora 8 live CD this afternoon. Works fine. Decided to install it on my hard drive. That also worked. I have a single ethernet card, which I configured with a fixed IP address (192.168.x.y). Set the gateway to be my internet firewall machine.

However, when I reboot the machine, it configures the IP address, and then a few seconds later, decides that it needs to run dhcp (which I explicitly disabled, along with disabling IPv6). When the dhcp request times out, the system resets my IP address to 169.24.x.y - and then it can't locate my network at all....

Several questions - I really need to fix this - I need this machine back on the net...

1) How do I stop this from happening? It needs to believe that I want the static IP address

2) What is avahi-daemon? Do I need to have it running? One of the config files says it should not be used if network discovery isn't being done - and it isn't in this system... How do I turn it off??

3) Unrelated to networking - Fedora 8 installs only Gnome and I prefer KDE.
Once the network is running, will 'yum install kde' install all the kde software?
If I want to try kde4, what is the correct way to install that instead of kde3?

thanks very much for your help,

nbc

[glennzo]

Originally Posted by nbc

I burned a Fedora 8 live CD this afternoon. Works fine. Decided to install it on my hard drive. That also worked. I have a single ethernet card, which I configured with a fixed IP address (192.168.x.y). Set the gateway to be my internet firewall machine.

However, when I reboot the machine, it configures the IP address, and then a few seconds later, decides that it needs to run dhcp (which I explicitly disabled, along with disabling IPv6). When the dhcp request times out, the system resets my IP address to 169.24.x.y - and then it can't locate my network at all....

Several questions - I really need to fix this - I need this machine back on the net...

1) How do I stop this from happening? It needs to believe that I want the static IP address

Did you use System > Administration > Network to set the static ip?

Originally Posted by nbc

2) What is avahi-daemon? Do I need to have it running? One of the config files says it should not be used if network discovery isn't being done - and it isn't in this system... How do I turn it off??

System > Administration > Services. Uncheck it for level 5.

Originally Posted by nbc

3) Unrelated to networking - Fedora 8 installs only Gnome and I prefer KDE.
Once the network is running, will 'yum install kde' install all the kde software?

Applications > Add / Remove Software. Right side of the screen. KDE is probably already checked as installed. Can you log out and log back in, but click 'session' and choose KDE?

Originally Posted by nbc

If I want to try kde4, what is the correct way to install that instead of kde3?

I'm not sure but I think if you want KDE4 installed then you would have to step into 'rawhide' (development) territory. Dangerous if you want a reliable desktop. Fun if you like to play with Linux. You can get a live CD from RedHat. https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedo.../msg00145.html

thanks very much for your help,

nbc[/QUOTE]

[nbc]

1) Originally I set the static IP during the Live CD install scripts. After rebooting and having the problem, I used the network admin program to play with it - the IP address is set up correctly - the problem is it insists on overriding it with a dhcp request and I even though dhcp is not enabled or configured on that device, it still does it - I need to know how to stop the dhcp override.

2) I can disable it - but should I?

3) I think KDE is not installed during the live cd install. It is not available as a 'new session' option. The Add/Remove software program doesn't run because it can't connect to the network to examine the repositories...

Any suggestions?

thanks,

nbc

[topdog]

I think it is either networkmanager or avahi that is changing your configuration to dhcp just disable the two and your static configuration should work.

[nbc]

I disabled the avahi daemon. How do I disable the network manager? And is that something I really want to do???

thanks,

nbc

[topdog]

To disable netmanager on an interface set

NM_CONTROLLED=no

in the interface's configuration file /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-<interface>

[nbc]

Thanks - I will give that a try when I get home tonight...

nbc

[nbc]

I seem to have solved the problem - but I'm not sure I believe the solution. Figured I would post it just for the record.

The day after I loaded Fedora 8 (and it was giving me all this grief) the system started screaming like a 747 on takeoff - one of the fans in the case appears to be breaking... I shut the machine down. This afternoon I pulled out the fan and popped in a new one.

Rebooted the machine - the network card came up 'inactive'. I used the network gui tool and hit the 'activate' button. Loaded my static IP address and has been running fine since....

I successfully did a 'yum update' and rebooted with the updated kernel. Same thing - the network card does not come up on boot - I think it should according to the config files. But as soon as I start it, the system appears to be working properly.

Who knew fans had so much control over the system

nbc