Duel Ethernet card problems?

[Doug Bronson]

Hi all.
Thanks for the information.
I hope nobody minds, but there were so many responses to my query that I
decided to reply to all at one time.

As you have probably guessed, my problem still exist.

Below are copies of some of the responses that were received.

In them you will find the answers to the questions that were asked.

<<--Charles Steinkuehler wrote:-->>
>
> What cards are you using?  The drivers for some NIC cards will only
> support one card in the system at a time, but this is not typically a
> problem with PCI devices (although I've heard reports of it happening).

2 each Linksys LNE100 and LNE100TX
1 each onboard Intel device
 
> Assuming the driver is actually loaded and talking to your cards (type
> "ip addr" to see a list of ethernet devices to be sure...you should see
> ethX entries for all installed cards if the driver is loaded, but any
> "unconfigured" interfaces will be missing an IP address), you just need
> to get them configured.  If the ports don't show up in the output of "ip
> addr", you need to verify the proper modules are getting loaded.

Everything shows up normally
All cards, devices and Ip Addresses.

> Once your cards are recognized, go to /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/
> and you will find a file named ifcfg-eth0.  In this file are simple
> variable assignments to setup the interface parameters.  Just copy the
> file to ifcfg-eth1 and edit the values as appropriate.  As a reference,
> my static IP for eth0 has the following ifcfg-eth0 file:
> 
> DEVICE=eth0
> ONBOOT=yes
> BOOTPROTO=static
> IPADDR=216.171.153.135
> NETMASK=255.255.255.192
> GATEWAY=216.171.153.129

Both cards show the same (except for the ip addresses) as yours. The
only exception is that both of mine shows: "BOOTPROTO=none"

<<--Jonathan Hutchins wrote:-->>
> 
> Just out of curiosity, what are you using as a guide or reference for this
> project?  There are some very good HOWTO files at www.tldp.org, and books like
> Using Linux can be handy references as well.  There's also David Ranch's
> Trinity project for hardening Linux configurations, and some good books on
> building firewalls.

Too many books to list here.
I do have a recent hard copy of Mr. Ranch's HOWTO.

> You may find that you're able to do everything you need using a GUI and
> configuration tools, but chances are they don't include all the options you
> might think of and will eventually bite you by not following a standard
> procedure for configuring your system.  When you get into a more advanced
> project where you have to drop back to working with the text configuration
> files, you may spend days hunting for various components that change system
> settings when they run.

I've tried the GUI's, when they failed I went back to the command line.

> Something I haven't seen mentioned yet is the /etc/modules.conf file, where you
> need an "alias" entry for each of your cards.  Although some modules will
> automatically detect a second instance of the same card, not all will, and it's
> better to be explicit if you want the system to work all the time, every time.
> 
> As an example, one of my systems has:
> 
> alias eth0 3c509
> alias eth1 3c59x

Mine says the samething, except for the device.

<<--numa at thenuma.com wrote:-->>
> 
> Ok, what chipset are the cards?  What kernel module are you using?

Linksys: tulip
Intel: eepro100
kernel: 2.4.18-14
 
> Are the cards themselves powering up (link light???)

Yes

> tcpdump the
> interface and see if it is blasting stuff around, or even seeing other
> computers.

The working card is listening.

<<--Brian Densmore wrote:-->>
> 
> Other than that it's very hard to diagnose without knowing the chipset.
> Some chipsets are better/worse than others. rtl8139s tend to be pretty
> common and cheap.

If I did not answer your question above, please advise me where to look.

<<--ALL-->>

I can make any card work by itself. 
Using the NETWORK GUI, I can make the other card come alive, but at the
same time the opposite card goes dead. By dead, I mean the lights are
on, the NETWORK GUI says that its active, but you can't ping anything
with it.
To change the state of the cards, all I have to do is "deactivate" then
"activate" the dead card. All from the GUI.
The above statements are true with any card in any slot,

The 3 RedHat installations (yes, I've reloaded 3 times) went without a
hitch with the lone exception of an "X Server" problem, which was easily
overcome.

Like I said before, after the freash install, both cards work fine. It's
only after the first reboot that one goes dead.
Only one time was I able to get both cards working without reinstalling
the OS.
But after the dreaded reboot one went dead.

Doug