FreeBSD and networking

[ddm at mclinux.com (Derek Martin)]

On Sun, 4 Jun 2000, Brad wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I an trying to get my USB to Ethernet adaptor to work on FreeBSD v4.0. The
> specific adaptor at a linksys, and is specificly listed in the kernel config
> file using the aue device. When i do a 'netstat -r'  go get the route
> statement, it seems to return all the correct info. It takes a few minutes
> for the table to get returned, which seems strange. But when i try to ping my
> gateway i get nothing. 

The reason it takes a few minutes is because it's trying to use DNS to
reverse lookup  the IP addresses of hosts in your routing tables.  If you
instead use netstat -rn you should see the output immediately.  The delay
is caused by your system being unable to look up the addresses, since your
networking isn't working properly.  Each DNS lookup must time out.

> There seems to be some sort of connection because 'netstat -r' was
> able to return the Ethernet address of the Ethernet card on my
> gateway, which it had to find only through some connection. But i
> can't ping. I'm kind of new to BSD, mind you, but any help would be
> appreciated.

I think you're a little confused, though perhaps FreeBSD's netstat is
different from others I've used.  Ordinarily, netstat -r does not print
out ethernet addresses.  It prints out IP addresses.  They are not the
same.

If you actually did have the ethernet address of your gateway, which would
look something like 00:11:22:3F:4A:6B, then I'd say your network is at
least partially working.  If however, you're seeing the IP address of your
gateway, which would be something like 192.168.1.1 then this is probably
NOT any indication of anything working. 

Generally when you configure your network you must tell your machine what
its default gateway is, which is then added to the routing table by
(usually) a shell script that runs at boot time.  There doesn't need to be
any connectivity for this route to be set up.  The kernel will happily add
it to the routing table, in expectation that it will be up, at some point.

As to how to FIX your problem, I have no idea... I don't know much about
making devices work on FreeBSD.  Best of luck.

-- 
Derek Martin
System Administrator
Mission Critical Linux
martin at MissionCriticalLinux.com 

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