Lost ability to connect to Internet on test installation.

[Jim Cornette]

Douglas Furlong wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-08-25 at 23:15 -0400, Jim Cornette wrote:
> 
>>Never mind.
>>
>>Havoc Pennington reported the problem on the devel list. This was on my 
>>8/22 mail that I downloaded but did not read before rebooting.
>>
>>hp - bringing up an interface creates an empty resolv.conf.
>>   Writing a correct resolv.conf results in working network,
>>   so the dhcp succeeds, resolv.conf is just hosed.
>>
>>This is going to stump a lot of people. How is anyone to guess that this 
>>sort of problem exists? This is going to result in a lot of reinstalls.
> 
> 
> Please don't take this in the wrong way, but resolv.conf is part of the
> incredibly basic network configuration. I am surprised that it would
> stump so many people who are using a TEST release.
> 
> There are some incredibly simple debugging procedures to use for network
> connectivity, and the first thing you do is try to contact an IP on your
> network, then one off your network, if all that happens, then try and
> resolve host names, if that fails you know it is related to DNS. It
> should only take a minute or two to work out the problem, at most.
> 
> Doug
> 
> 


Basically, I'm a user oriented (desktop type user) and not thoroughly 
involved with knowing how all the configuration files, drivers, etc need 
to be present and how they will all be setup.

No RHCE or any competing system administration degree obtained by me.

I guess having a working connection since around RHL 5.2 w/o needing to 
do a lot of configuration and then having the connection lost all of a 
sudden leaves little need for knowing the behind the scenes requirements 
  that a lot of processes use.

In short, things usually work without flaw or needing user 
configuration. This being a test release, things will break 
unexpectedly. Testers will learn from exposure to a rapidly changing 
system and breakages in different areas.


My thought process.
The connection worked yesterday, it does not work today.
I get an IP address and can configure my router. The nics seem to be 
alright.
I'm using Linux and Windows OS or Mac OS are supported. Did my ISP mess 
things up.
Other OS versions on the same hardware (same computer actually) work w/o 
problems. My ISP must not be evil.
Hey! it does not work, why not?

Asking questions to others, they explain. I understand and learn 
something. The day is not a total loss.

The comment regarding some will reinstall their systems is that there 
are testers with different levels of expertise. With no network 
connection, users have no way to get newer packages.

My /etc/resolve.conf file shows the below. Dhclient usually does the job 
flawlessly. Now I know what it should contain. (After the fact)

; generated by /sbin/dhclient-script
search gateway.2wire.net
nameserver 172.16.0.1

No offense taken,
Jim