Problem setting up wired networking

[Anne Wilson]

On Tuesday 11 November 2008 17:31:22 Michal Jaegermann wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 07:40:14AM +0000, Anne Wilson wrote:
> > Networking is the one aspect of Fedora that always confuses me.
> > It seems to me that on a laptop I want/need NetworkManager to work
> > with wifi wherever I am working.
>
> Usually wifi gets its addresses through DHCP and you want for
> that NetworkManager running.
>
> > OTOH, at home I would generally want to work with wired.
>
> If you are in control of a corresponding DHCP server (a big IF) then
> the the easiest way is to, _on that server_, lock up a particular IP
> number to a MAC address of a wired interface of your laptop,
> configure that interface for DHCP and sick NetworkMangler on it.
> That way if you are using a wired connection away from home you have
> a huge chance that it will work "automagically" too and at home you
> still can find your laptop always at the same address.  

My router does handle dhcp, and yes, you can reserve addresses.  Unfortunately 
it seems to be aware of the present conflict.  It lists the new laptop with 
the dhcp address, but when I tell it that I want it to reserve a different 
address (the one that I gave to NM) it tells me that that address already 
exists.  I guess I have to get the conflicts sorted out first, then I'll be 
able to do this.

> If you do
> not care about the same address then disregard "locking" and just
> use DHCP.
>
If I reserve the address I could use dhcp.  I want a static address, one way 
or another, so that when I read the logs I know which computer it is referring 
to.

> Home routers usually come with a DHCP server (and for sure if they
> have wireless interfaces too) but how configurable that is another
> question.  If you have a "server type" box on your home network then
> you can run your own DHCP server on it as well and that you can
> configure until cows come home ('man dhcpd.conf').  Turn off then
> that one on a router so they will not compete
>
> If DHCP on a wired interface is not an option then you need
> 'network' service running as well.  Make sure that in corresponding
> /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-ethX there is a line
> 'NM_CONTROLLED=no'. system-config-network will put that for you,
> eventually, and that what the quoted earlier bug was about.
> Missing such line amount to 'NM_CONTROLLED=yes' but for your own
> sanity in the future you may want to be explicit about it.
>
It did have 'NM_CONTROLLED=yes' but I had changed it.  Now I'm unsure as to 
whether NM should control it or not.

> Now NM used to have a bug that it ignored NM_CONTROLLED
> configuration and was grabbing wrong interfaces too.  If that
> is still present in F10 or not I do not know.  It is a serious
> obstacle if there and if NM is used at all forces you into a DHCP
> configuration on all interfaces.
>
> > Can you
> > please spell out for me which services I should be using?
>
> And now Jesse Keating will tell you that this is so simple that it
> is an envy of the world.  As a matter of fact he already did.
>
I'm sure that it is good when it is working correctly, but it really is 
confusing.  I've struggled with this every time I do a fedora install.  Jesse 
does know what he's talking about, so I hope he is going to give me some fool-
proof instruction :-)

Anne
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