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John Chambers wrote in a message to Mike Bilow: JC> From: John Chambers <root at minya> I think you need a domain name somewhere. JC> | root wrote in a message to Mike Bilow: JC> Hmmm ... No, it was to discuss at blu.org, not to Mike. But JC> maybe I can get the goofy mailer to correctly identify me JC> this time. (But then there's a guy I'm working for now at JC> Digital - oops, I meant Compaq - whose email usually JC> goes out identified as having come from JC> firstname.lastname at localhost.zko.dec.com. ;-) My mail program takes the personal name, such as it is, from the headers. This system is rather old, and it actually is UUCP-connected. If, by the time the mail has been read and replied, it looks a bit funny, I'm sorry. JC> That's funny; every linux system I've ever used (not all JC> that many, but several different releases) have JC> had a program called control-panel, which is a GUI for JC> doing assorted superuserish things to the system. The FAQs JC> and HOWTOs that I've been reading all like to suggest this JC> as the best way to configure your system. Are we perhaps JC> talking about different systems, both called "linux"? I think I know Linux when I see it. I'm prepared to accept that your Linux distribution has some sort of GUI configuration tool, but this is not standard. Command line tools and text files are standard, and the GUI tool probably just spawns the usual command line tools and writes the usual text configuration files. JC> Hmmm again. This system (Redhat 5.1) has no file by that JC> name. I tried the command JC> find / -name '*modules.conf*' -print JC> and it finds no files whatsoever. I even have my old JC> system mounted so I can compare files, and it had no such JC> file name, either. I also grep modules.conf JC> /usr/doc/HOWTO/* JC> This directory has 31Mbytes of data, and there was only one JC> match, in the Busmouse document. Are we in the same JC> universe? If "modules.conf" exists on your system, it would be in "/etc". This could theoretically be modified in the modutils source, but that's unlikely. If you don't have this file, then there are several possibilities. First, the old (deprecated) file was "/etc/conf.modules", and this is still supported for reasons of backward compatibility. Second, you might have neither file, and then "modprobe" runs on the default configuration which is hardcodeed into it. You can issue "modprobe -c" to make it dump its current configuration. By the way, I regard it as a serious security risk to have no files "/etc/modules.conf" or "/etc/conf.modules" on a system with kerneld running. I recommend that "/etc/conf.modules" should always exist as a zero length file owned by root and with permissions 644. Even if you don't need it, "/etc/modules.conf" should always exist owned by root with permissions 644. If either file does not exist, someone other than root could create it and get their own binaries loaded with kernel privilege, which could be disastrous. JC> I just checked with "man kerneld", and its man page lists JC> no files that it reads. In fact, the page doesn't contain JC> the string "file" in any capitalization. So it appears that JC> this kerneld doesn't read from any files (or it does and the JC> fact isn't documented). As I said, kerneld does not read these files. Instead, kerneld spawns the "modprobe" utility which reads the configuration table generated by the "depmod" utility based on the contents of "/etc/modules.conf". You can probably find out more useful information with "man depmod" and "man modprobe". JC> Hmmm yet again. Sounds like confused terminology. It seems JC> to me that interface names like "eth0" don't refer to JC> hardware, but rather to software, in particular to kernel JC> data structures. After all, "lo0" is an interface name, JC> and it clearly doesn't refer to hardware, but just to a JC> software object in the kernel. Granted, "eth0" does refer JC> to hardware in some sense, though, which is why I'd call it JC> confused. Look, the mapping between interface names such as "eth0" and the driver modules is specific to your hardware, and is set in your "/etc/modules.conf" file. This is done with a line like "alias eth1 3c509" or whatever. JC> In any case, "ifconfig eth1 up" is what the ifconfig man JC> page says attaches interfaces, but this doesn't work: JC> : ifconfig eth1 up JC> : echo $? JC> 255 JC> : ifconfig eth1 JC> eth1: unknown interface. JC> : JC> So however eth1 is supposed to come into existence, this JC> isn't it. One mystery so far is just who creates (or JC> attaches or activates) the lo0 and eth0 interfaces. They JC> seem to just appear "as if by magic", but whoever does the JC> job doesn't make eth1 exist. In my experience, this is JC> always a bit of black magic that is different on every JC> Unix system that I've ever seen. Well, sure, don't listen to me. I just write the damned drivers. It's not like I ever have time to test them to see if they work. I just write these messages to public mailing lists in a nefarious attempt to get you to take my advice seriously and beat your head against your keyboard in frustration. JC> Hmmm ... I read "man insmod" and tried running it a few JC> times. The new card is a 3Com 3c509b, and there is a JC> 3c509.o module that might work. But whenever I run insmod, JC> it just tells me: JC> /lib/.../3c509.o: init_module: Device or resource busy JC> It's not obvious what this might mean. How can the JC> device (or resource) be busy if it's not even loaded? Try "lsmod". But that just tells you if the driver is loaded. If you have the same type of card for both eth0 and eth1, then you don't need to reload the driver to handle the second card. You do need to let the kernel know how to do all this stuff, and that is what "/etc/modules.conf" is for. However, I can tell you right now that the most common reason for a 3C509 card to fail under Linux is that you have it set in PnP mode. One reason this is common is because that is how they leave the factory now. To change this, you need to run the "3C5X9CFG" utility (under DOS) that comes on the Etherdisk. The latest Etherdisk 6.0 for the 3C509 is available in a two-disk set from "http://infodeli.3com.com". Linux can use the card in PnP mode, provided that you use the "isapnp" tool utility to configure it at boot, but it is simpler to run the card with PnP disabled and handle it as standard. Obviously, if you run two separate 3C509 cards in the same machine, they need to be on different base addresses and IRQs. JC> Probably. I just have to figure out what to type. And JC> of course there's always the danger of totally killing JC> the system if I do it wrong (which is highly likely, since JC> this is a new system full of mystery, so I'm once again JC> just a bumbling novice at it all. But if I wait until I JC> understand it all, I'll die of old age first ... ;-) JC> (I've already done things a couple of times that seemed to JC> tuen the system into a near-total zombie, and had to JC> resort to rebooting my old linux, zapping the new partition, JC> and installing from scratch. It seems somewhat fragile.) We never claimed that Linux was user friendly. We just claim that it works. -- Mike
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