Issue: Cannot get Fedora Core 5 computer to boot up eth0 and get IP and DNS
addresses from my Vonage Linksys router, WRT54GP2. Windows XP machines boot
and get connected with no problem.


I have a Fedora Core 5 server that I have always used on my broadband
connection. I am using Comcast high speed cable with their modem, a
Scientific Atlanta WebSTAR. Previously, I would connect my modem directly
to my FC5 box on a network card, configured as eth0, and have DHCP enabled
to get the IP address and the DNS server info. I have a second NIC setup as
eth1 and this would connect to a hub and into that hub I would connect 2 XP
Pro machines. I used Firestarter firewall to setup NAT for the home LAN and
Firestarter would enable DHCP to the hub, where any computer you plugged
into the hub would be online if you had setup the network on those
computers as "Automatic". This worked great and I had not problems with
this setup. Very, very good setup, I could run my apache server for my 3
FQNS and also run vsftpd for my ftp server. This was so freaking good
because the Linux machine had the real IP address and thus could be reached
from the internet and the servers worked really well.

Now I need to find another telephone company to get my home phone working
again, I have billing issues with Bellsouth that are not going to be
resloved any time soon in this lifetime but God knows I really tried to
work things out with Bellsouth. They are stubborn, inflexible, and just
darn right mean. I give up on them. Since I always have a good broadband
connection in my house, I decided to give Vonage a try for the $25 a month,
all you can eat telephone service. Voange, by the way, is freaking
fantastic, no BS, low price, and it really is God's gift in my situation.

To use Vonage, I have to have an adapter connected directly to my cable
modem where my home phone plugs in and then the Ethernet cable goes on to
my setup. Now of course this will not work anymore, considering that I need
a real IP address for the Linux box. The vonage adapter is a Linksys
Broadband routher, WRT54GP2, which has 1 Ethernet input jack and 3 Ethernet
output jacks. Here is the device:
http://tinyurl.com/qt4od

What I want to do now is have all 3 of my computers plugged into the
Linksys and allow them to setup themselves with automatic settings for the
Windows machines and configure my Fedora box to connect with DHCP to get an
IP address and DNS server addresses. Then I can setup the router to forward
the server ports or if I can find it, put the Linux box in the DMZ,
although I cannot really find that setup in the browser admin screen.

Anyway, the issue is that the Fedora box will not connect to this routher.
When I boot, eth0 failed to get an IP address and thus in disabled. The
computer is not online anymore since connecting the Linksys router in
between the cable modem and the Fedora Box. It just does not work. I can
even try "service network restart" and "Determining IP information for
eth0" times out and fails. The Windows XP machines have no problem at all
with connecting to the Linksys, they boot fine and work great on the
Internet.

One thing that I have noticed is that I have always used 192.168.0.xxx for
my home LAN NAT addresses. The Linux box used 192.168.0.1 as it's local
address and the other machines on the LAN fall into that range. The Linksys
router on the other hand, dishes out IP addresses in the 192.168.15.xxx
range, starting at 192.168.15.100 and is set to go to 192.168.15.50.

What is the problem here and what do I have to do in order to get my Fedora
Core 5 server to get an IP address from the linksys? This really bites, I
desperatly need to get this Linux box back online and am stumped, why won't
it get an IP address from the router?

I would really like, in the end, to connect my setup as such:

Cable to modem
Modem to Vonage router, Linksys WRT54GP2
Linksys to Fedora Box on eth0
Fedora to hub on eth1
hub to other computers on the LAN

I would prefer this because I could transfer large files, like a DVD or CD
image file and with all the computers connected via the 3com hub 8/TP100
because that sucker was fast. I could transfer a 1Gb file in less than a
minute, with the network connecting the computers using the LInksys, I
would have to wait almost an hour to transfer a file.

Somebody please help, how can I get my Fedora box to boot up and get
connected to a Linksys router?

Thank you and Happy New Year.
--
~Ohmster
theohmster at comcast dot net
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