Topic: ifconfig shows only lo interface

[BillN]

I am pulling my hair out.

It is hard to say where it all started, but this is where I am. I had been running a beta of SME 7, upgraded through several betas and then RC1 and recently RC2. I have a Shuttle P-4 mother board with a Via chipset. There is an onboard Ethernet interface and I have a 3-Com 3c509. I normally use the 3-Com as the LAN interface and the Via as the WAN.

What happens is occasionally I lose my internet connection through the SME server. All status lights on my switch and DSL modem seem normal. Sometimes I still have LAN access, sometimes not. If I logon  to the console and do an ifconfig sometimes I only see the lo interface, sometimes lo and only one of the Ethernet controllers (when it is working properly, of course I see lo and both Ethernet controllers). When I go to the admin console and go to configure this server, it sees both controllers. If I swap the LAN and WAN controllers, and of course the cables, after the reboot normally it works fine for a while and then I have to re-do that exersise.

I had suspected that the Via chipset or some other weirdety of the motherboard was causing the issue (not to slam Via, but I have had issues with Via ethernet and DSL/Cable modems in the past). I swapped out the Shuttle for another P-4 board that was pulled from a Gateway box (I think it has an Intel chipset) and did an update install of 7.0rc2. Now I have two 3c509s. It all seems to be working light wise on the switch and modem, but I still have only the lo interface, no LAN and no WAN access.

Any guesses?

Bill

[pfloor]

In my experience, this usually turns out to be a bad NIC card, shared IRQ problem or a bad PCI slot (or a combination of the 3).

Grab 2 new (different ones than what are in the machine) NIC cards and install them.  Go through the admin setup and configure them and then check with ifconfig.  If you still have problems try moving them around in the PCI slots.