Realtek Ethernet

Hi,
if you're lucky, the easiest way is to run

# dhclient eth0

if you eth name is eth0.

It may be also helfull to see output of these commands:
# ifconfig
# dmesg | grep eth
# cat /etc/network/interfaces

In Ubuntu 8.10 there is a NetworkManager that handles the network connectin by itself, but it can only handle the network cards that are not configured in /etc/network/interfaces.
And the most importnt thing - be sure you have the cable connected on both sides - router and PC - and that the router has a DHCP server enabled.
Juraj

Thanks for the response. The NIC lights don't light, I think indicating that there is a problem with the NIC driver. It is an on motherboard NIC.

I have run the commands as you requested. Results are as follows. (Still doesn't work)

russ@russ-ubuntu:~$ dhclient eth0
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.1.1
Copyright 2004-2008 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/

can't create /var/lib/dhcp3/dhclient.leases: Permission denied
SIOCSIFADDR: Permission denied
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Permission denied
SIOCSIFFLAGS: Permission denied
Open a socket for LPF: Operation not permitted

russ@russ-ubuntu:~$ ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1a:92:72:f7:01
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)
          Interrupt:222 Base address:0xa000

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
          inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
          RX packets:274 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:274 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
          RX bytes:17364 (17.3 KB) TX bytes:17364 (17.3 KB)

russ@russ-ubuntu:~$ dmesg | grep eth
[ 2.726212] eth0: RTL8168b/8111b at 0xf88aa000, 00:1a:92:72:f7:01, XID 38000000 IRQ 222
[ 6.325099] Driver 'sd' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
[ 6.325328] sda:<4>Driver 'sr' needs updating - please use bus_type methods
[ 26.469026] r8169: eth0: link down
[ 30.221396] hda-intel: Invalid position buffer, using LPIB read method instead.
[ 132.090850] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth0: link is not ready

russ@russ-ubuntu:~$ cat /etc/network/interfaces
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

Thanks,
Russ

You have to run the shcp command as root or via the sudo command:
$ sudo dhclient eth0
or
# dhclient eth0

The '#' sign indicates you are logged in as root, while the '$' sign indicates you are logged in as a common user. I suppose yhe driver is ok, since you can see the interface with ifconfig command. So try the dhcp command once again as mentioned above.

And what does the NetworkManager applet says about the interface?

sorry - not 'shcp' but 'dhcp of course :)

Thanks Juraj Lukac, that solved my question.

I logged in as root and ran dhclient eht0 and got the following:
I looked at the DHCP router (Linksys wrt54g) and it is set up with mask 255.255.255.0
All the windows machines connected to the router obtain leases with no problem.

Thanks,
Russ

russ@russ-ubuntu:~$ sudo dhclient eth0
[sudo] password for russ:
Internet Systems Consortium DHCP Client V3.1.1
Copyright 2004-2008 Internet Systems Consortium.
All rights reserved.
For info, please visit http://www.isc.org/sw/dhcp/

Listening on LPF/eth0/00:1a:92:72:f7:01
Sending on LPF/eth0/00:1a:92:72:f7:01
Sending on Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 10
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 9
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 14
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 19
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 1
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.
russ@russ-ubuntu:~$

Are you sure the cable is connected? Did it work when you tried the dhclient for the first time? And can you please put here the output of this command?:

$ sudo mii-tool

Got It! I put in another NIC, then played with it a bit. Not sure what did it but it started working but probably a bad NIC.

Thanks for all the help. I did learn something from it but sure have a long way to go.

Russ