Linux Mint Forums

I am not an experienced Linux user, I use Linux Mint Isadora on a media server. Last night it was connecting to my network fine, I updated some packages and then shut down. This morning I keep getting the message that there is no cable connected to the network. I cannot believe that the ethernet patch cable to the router failed overnight and I have double and triple checked the cable is actually plugged in. I am assuming that the fault somehow lies with the drivers for the MoBo ethernet port. Obviously as Christmas loom I really need to be able to stream music and films from my NAS to the HD TV connected to the Mint computer.

Any help would be appreciated, but please bear in mind that as far as Mint is concerned I am a babe in arms.

I pulled up the follwing information to help with diagnosing the problem:

bilbo@AE-135 ~ $ nm-tool

NetworkManager Tool

State: disconnected

- Device: eth0 -----------------------------------------------------------------
Type: Wired
Driver: forcedeth
State: disconnected
Default: no
HW Address: 00:1E:8C:68:D9:96

Capabilities:
Carrier Detect: yes
Speed: 100 Mb/s

Wired Properties
Carrier: on


bilbo@AE-135 ~ $ cat /etc/network/interfaces
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback



bilbo@AE-135 ~ $ inxi Fc 0

CPU[-Dual core AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ (SMP) clocked at 2613.486 Mhz-] Kernel[-2.6.32-21-generic i686-] Up[-47 min-] Mem[-348.5/3276.0MB-] HDD[-1420.2GB(4.2% used)-] Procs[-162-] Client[-Shell-] inxi[-1.3.2-]


Version:
Kernel Linux 2.6.32-21generic (i686)
Compiled #32-Ubuntu SMP Fri Apr 16 08:10:02 UTC2010
C Library GNU C library version 2.11.1 (stable)
Default C Compiler GNU C Compiler version 4.4.3 (Ubuntu 4.4.3-4ubuntu5.1
Distribution Linux Mint 9 Isadora





History of updates:

Date Level Package New Version
11 Dec 2012 02:11:24 3 mysql-common 5.1.66-Oubuntu0.10.04.3
11 Dec 2012 02:11:24 3 libmysqlclient16 5.1.66-Oubuntu0.10.04.3
11 Dec 2012 02:11:24 3 gimp 2.6.8-2ubuntu1.6
11 Dec 2012 02:11:24 3 gimp-data 2.6.8-2ubuntu1.6
11 Dec 2012 02:11:24 3 libgimp2.0 2.6.8-2ubuntu1.6

Looking at what you've posted, to me it sounds like a network manager problem.

bilbo@AE-135 ~ $ cat /etc/network/interfaces
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

Your interfaces file does not show an entry for your eth(x) connection. This is useally the case when network manager "manages" that device. I can't tell you where to look, to solve the network manager issue, but if you want to remove your NIC from being controlled by network manager, and do it the old fashioned way, edit your interfaces file and add the following stanza:

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

You do this using your favorite editor program as root; start your editor wuth the sudo command. For example, from a terminal window -> sudo gedit /etc/network/interfaces

This will run the gedit program as root and allow you to edit the file. Once done, you need to restart networking. You can either reboot the computer or you can issue the following command -> sudo /etc/init.d/networking restart

sudo ifconfig eth0
will show you the state of the interface and whether or not an address has been assigned, if it isn't a hardware issue you should have an address.

You may loose some of the "gee-whiz" features of network manager, but it doesn't sound to me like you make use of these anyway.