2nd NIC disconnects, loses IP address

Hello, all,

I've got a Zorin 8 64 box with a second NIC in it that is dedicated to a WinXP machine. This is a transitional situation until we get software installed on the Zorin PC and get acclimated.

What seems to happen is that the second NIC, which is on a different network, will just stop working. I ran ifconfig -a and got this....

eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx [EDITED out by Moderator for Security of OP!]
UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:224413 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:227468 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:1 carrier:1
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:41103829 (41.1 MB) TX bytes:21335809 (21.3 MB)

Notice that it doesn't have an IP. The IP is set static to be on the same "special" network by itself with the WinXP box to keep the XP box off of the internet. Originally I tried this with a crossover cable directly between the two machines but I thought the issue might be caused by the cable so right now they are using standard ethernet cables with an old hub I had laying around.

When I look at the card through System Tools | System Settings | Network, it shows that the IP information is still there but reports that the network cable is unplugged. So... is there a way to "refresh" or "repair" that connection without having to reboot the system?

I saw another thread on this topic in the forum marked solved, but it involved modifying the operating system and I'm not comfortable doing that if I don't have to. I believe the solution restored the function of ifup and ifdown, which don't do anything for me at present.

Your help will be greatly appreciated. Having to reboot each time this happens is kind of a pain plus it ruins the "uptime" numbers.

Best,
Bill

Hi, I think the answer was in your post, you have the XP machine on a different network - machines usually have to be in the same workgroup to see each other. What confuses me though is that you state that the network card stops working altogether - is the network card faulty? Even if it cannot communicate you should see some form of an activity light.

Your report also talks of collisions on the network which is not good. What happens when you browse the network from Zorin?

Hi, Swarfendor,

Thanks for the response. I probably didn't do a very good job of explaining my setup.... so let me try again.

I've got 2 machines, an XP box and a Zorin box. The Zorin box has 2 NICs in it, one that's on my LAN and connects to the internet. eth0 has a static IP of 192.168.43. eth1 has a static IP of 192.168.2.3. It is connected through a hub to the XP box, which has an IP of 192.168.2.4. So the Zorin PC can browse the entire LAN and go to the internet though eth0, but the XP box can only connect to the Zorin box and is isolated from the internet because the 2 NICs are not bridged.

--------------------------------------------------
| Zorin OS8 eth0 (192.168.1.17) | <==========> switch <=======> LAN and WAN
| | --------------------------------------
| Zorin OS8 eth1 (192.168.2.3) | <==========> hub <=========================> | XP NIC (192.168.2.4) |
| | | |
---------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------

This diagram looks a lot better in the editor than it does in the post.... but I think you get the idea.

So the XP box is accessible through eth1 for remote desktop and file sharing. When it's working, it works great. We will run in this situation as a temporary solution to Microsoft's end-of-life decision for XP until we find all the alternative open source software that we need or install our Windows software on the Zorin machines using Wine.

It's eth1 that is dropping out occasionally and I am just looking for a solution to that problem.

I would like to add that this distro ROCKS and I'm very happy with it. I've used a half dozen or so different flavors starting with RH8 and including Centos server, Mandrake, Kubuntu, and others, and this is a great product.

Hi, so basically you use the second card in the Zorin box for a VPN - I wonder if the answer to the question posed here might help? (Apologies if I am totally off my trolley! )

http://askubuntu.com/questions/145330/h ... for-ubuntu

Hi, Swarfender,

I think you and your trolley are right on the track! I will try this solution on my machine. I used to do quite a bit of work over VPN connections and they were very solid.

I have two more Nics that I pulled out of a win2k server that I'm ditching. If the VPN doesn't solve the problem I may switch out the NIC. It's an older PCI dual speed NIC and maybe it's getting confused.

Thanks a lot for the suggestion!

Best,

Bill