Bryan A. Zimmer wrote:
Hello, friends.
I am not new to networking and configuring desktop PC's in Fedora and
W*ndows, but I have a problem that is at least in part due to
unfamiliarity with DHCP.
Here's the problem: I have a friend who also uses Comcast broadband
cable internet. He uses Fedora almost exclusively, unless he can't
connect to the internet, in which case he switches to W*ndows XP.. (It's
as dual boot desktop).
In W*ndows, he never has problem receiving an IP address from the DHCP
server. He just configures the interface to use DHCP and, bingo! All the
network configuration info he needs is passed right to his8k machine.
In Fedora (both versions 7 and 8), he has chronic trouble getting
connected to the internet. At boot time, the attempt to start up the
interface "eth0" by requesting an IP from the DHCP server seems to fail
about 80% of the time, even more lately. Yet I see no obvious hardware
glitches, and the software configuration is vanilla-out-of-the-box.
I suspect this happens after he has run Windows and then runs Fedora,
and that the modem can tell the difference between the connections.
Therefore several ideas to try.
First, he may be able to reset the MAC address on the NIC, which will
make the connection look like another computer. I believe Comcast allow
up to three computers, so this may work.
Second, when shutting down a Windows boot, explicitly release the lease.
I have no idea how to do this under Windows, I don't use it anymore. But
I have had to release the lease to get a new connect in other cases, so
it's worth trying. If it works it can go in a shutdown script or similar.
--
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@xxxxxxx>
"We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked." - from Slashdot
