FIX: manpage links

[ikiwiki.git] / docs / handbook / handbook-config-network-setup.mdwn

## 6.8 Setting Up Network Interface Cards 



***Contributed by Marc Fonvieille. ***



Nowadays we can not think about a computer without thinking about a network connection. Adding and configuring a network card is a common task for any DragonFly administrator.



### 6.8.1 Locating the Correct Driver 



Before you begin, you should know the model of the card you have, the chip it uses, and whether it is a PCI or ISA card. DragonFly supports a wide variety of both PCI and ISA cards. Check the Hardware Compatibility List for your release to see if your card is supported.



Once you are sure your card is supported, you need to determine the proper driver for the card. The file `/usr/src/sys/i386/conf/LINT` will give you the list of network interfaces drivers with some information about the supported chipsets/cards. If you have doubts about which driver is the correct one, read the manual page of the driver. The manual page will give you more information about the supported hardware and even the possible problems that could occur.



If you own a common card, most of the time you will not have to look very hard for a driver. Drivers for common network cards are present in the `GENERIC` kernel, so your card should show up during boot, like so:



    

    dc0: <82c169 PNIC 10/100BaseTX> port 0xa000-0xa0ff mem 0xd3800000-0xd38

    000ff irq 15 at device 11.0 on pci0

    dc0: Ethernet address: 00:a0:cc:da:da:da

    miibus0: <MII bus> on dc0

    ukphy0: <Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface> on miibus0

    ukphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto

    dc1: <82c169 PNIC 10/100BaseTX> port 0x9800-0x98ff mem 0xd3000000-0xd30

    000ff irq 11 at device 12.0 on pci0

    dc1: Ethernet address: 00:a0:cc:da:da:db

    miibus1: <MII bus> on dc1

    ukphy1: <Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface> on miibus1

    ukphy1:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto





In this example, we see that two cards using the [dc(4)](http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/cgi/web-man?command=dc&section=4) driver are present on the system.



To use your network card, you will need to load the proper driver. This may be accomplished in one of two ways. The easiest way is to simply load a kernel module for your network card with [kldload(8)](http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/cgi/web-man?command=kldload&section=8). A module is not available for all network card drivers (ISA cards and cards using the [ed(4)](http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/cgi/web-man?command=ed&section=4) driver, for example). Alternatively, you may statically compile the support for your card into your kernel. Check `/usr/src/sys/i386/conf/LINT` and the manual page of the driver to know what to add in your kernel configuration file. For more information about recompiling your kernel, please see [kernelconfig.html Chapter 9]. If your card was detected at boot by your kernel (`GENERIC`) you do not have to build a new kernel.



### 6.8.2 Configuring the Network Card 



Once the right driver is loaded for the network card, the card needs to be configured. As with many other things, the network card may have been configured at installation time.



To display the configuration for the network interfaces on your system, enter the following command:



    

    % ifconfig

    dc0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500

            inet 192.168.1.3 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255

            ether 00:a0:cc:da:da:da

            media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)

            status: active

    dc1: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500

            inet 10.0.0.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.0.0.255

            ether 00:a0:cc:da:da:db

            media: Ethernet 10baseT/UTP

            status: no carrier

    lp0: flags=8810<POINTOPOINT,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500

    lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384

            inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000

    tun0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1500





 **Note:** Note that entries concerning IPv6 (`inet6` etc.) were omitted in this example.



In this example, the following devices were displayed:




* `dc0`: The first Ethernet interface


* `dc1`: The second Ethernet interface


* `lp0`: The parallel port interface


* `lo0`: The loopback device


* `tun0`: The tunnel device used by  **ppp** 



DragonFly uses the driver name followed by the order in which one the card is detected at the kernel boot to name the network card, starting the count at zero. For example, `sis2` would be the third network card on the system using the [sis(4)](http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/cgi/web-man?command=sis&section=4) driver.



In this example, the `dc0` device is up and running. The key indicators are:



  1. `UP` means that the card is configured and ready.

  1. The card has an Internet (`inet`) address (in this case `192.168.1.3`).

  1. It has a valid subnet mask (`netmask`; `0xffffff00` is the same as `255.255.255.0`).

  1. It has a valid broadcast address (in this case, `192.168.1.255`).

  1. The MAC address of the card (`ether`) is `00:a0:cc:da:da:da`

  1. The physical media selection is on autoselection mode (`media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)`). We see that `dc1` was configured to run with `10baseT/UTP` media. For more information on available media types for a driver, please refer to its manual page.

  1. The status of the link (`status`) is `active`, i.e. the carrier is detected. For `dc1`, we see `status: no carrier`. This is normal when an Ethernet cable is not plugged into the card.



If the [ifconfig(8)](http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/cgi/web-man?command=ifconfig&section=8) output had shown something similar to:



    

    dc0: flags=8843<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500

                ether 00:a0:cc:da:da:da





it would indicate the card has not been configured.



To configure your card, you need `root` privileges. The network card configuration can be done from the command line with [ifconfig(8)](http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/cgi/web-man?command=ifconfig&section=8) as root.



    

    # ifconfig dc0 inet 192.168.1.3 netmask 255.255.255.0





Manually configuring the care has the disadvantage that you would have to do it after each reboot of the system. The file `/etc/rc.conf` is where to add the network card's configuration.



Open `/etc/rc.conf` in your favorite editor. You need to add a line for each network card present on the system, for example in our case, we added these lines:



    

    ifconfig_dc0="inet 192.168.1.3 netmask 255.255.255.0"

    ifconfig_dc1="inet 10.0.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 media 10baseT/UTP"





You have to replace `dc0`, `dc1`, and so on, with the correct device for your cards, and the addresses with the proper ones. You should read the card driver and [ifconfig(8)](http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/cgi/web-man?command#ifconfig&section8) manual pages for more details about the allowed options and also [rc.conf(5)](http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/cgi/web-man?command=rc.conf&section=5) manual page for more information on the syntax of `/etc/rc.conf`.



If you configured the network during installation, some lines about the network card(s) may be already present. Double check `/etc/rc.conf` before adding any lines.



You will also have to edit the file `/etc/hosts` to add the names and the IP addresses of various machines of the LAN, if they are not already there. For more information please refer to [hosts(5)](http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/cgi/web-man?command=hosts&section=5) and to `/usr/share/examples/etc/hosts`.



### 6.8.3 Testing and Troubleshooting 



Once you have made the necessary changes in `/etc/rc.conf`, you should reboot your system. This will allow the change(s) to the interface(s) to be applied, and verify that the system restarts without any configuration errors.



Once the system has been rebooted, you should test the network interfaces.



#### 6.8.3.1 Testing the Ethernet Card 



To verify that an Ethernet card is configured correctly, you have to try two things. First, ping the interface itself, and then ping another machine on the LAN.



First test the local interface:



    

    % ping -c5 192.168.1.3

    PING 192.168.1.3 (192.168.1.3): 56 data bytes

    64 bytes from 192.168.1.3: icmp_seq#0 ttl64 time=0.082 ms

    64 bytes from 192.168.1.3: icmp_seq#1 ttl64 time=0.074 ms

    64 bytes from 192.168.1.3: icmp_seq#2 ttl64 time=0.076 ms

    64 bytes from 192.168.1.3: icmp_seq#3 ttl64 time=0.108 ms

    64 bytes from 192.168.1.3: icmp_seq#4 ttl64 time=0.076 ms

    

    --- 192.168.1.3 ping statistics ---

    5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss

    round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.074/0.083/0.108/0.013 ms





Now we have to ping another machine on the LAN:



    

    % ping -c5 192.168.1.2

    PING 192.168.1.2 (192.168.1.2): 56 data bytes

    64 bytes from 192.168.1.2: icmp_seq#0 ttl64 time=0.726 ms

    64 bytes from 192.168.1.2: icmp_seq#1 ttl64 time=0.766 ms

    64 bytes from 192.168.1.2: icmp_seq#2 ttl64 time=0.700 ms

    64 bytes from 192.168.1.2: icmp_seq#3 ttl64 time=0.747 ms

    64 bytes from 192.168.1.2: icmp_seq#4 ttl64 time=0.704 ms

    

    --- 192.168.1.2 ping statistics ---

    5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss

    round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.700/0.729/0.766/0.025 ms





You could also use the machine name instead of `192.168.1.2` if you have set up the `/etc/hosts` file.



#### 6.8.3.2 Troubleshooting 



Troubleshooting hardware and software configurations is always a pain, and a pain which can be alleviated by checking the simple things first. Is your network cable plugged in? Have you properly configured the network services? Did you configure the firewall correctly? Is the card you are using supported by DragonFly? Always check the hardware notes before sending off a bug report. Update your version of DragonFly to the latest PREVIEW version. Check the mailing list archives, or perhaps search the Internet.



If the card works, yet performance is poor, it would be worthwhile to read over the [tuning(7)](http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/cgi/web-man?command=tuning&section=7) manual page. You can also check the network configuration as incorrect network settings can cause slow connections.



Some users experience one or two ***device timeouts***, which is normal for some cards. If they continue, or are bothersome, you may wish to be sure the device is not conflicting with another device. Double check the cable connections. Perhaps you may just need to get another card.



At times, users see a few ***`watchdog timeout`*** errors. The first thing to do here is to check your network cable. Many cards require a PCI slot which supports Bus Mastering. On some old motherboards, only one PCI slot allows it (usually slot 0). Check the network card and the motherboard documentation to determine if that may be the problem.



***`No route to host`*** messages occur if the system is unable to route a packet to the destination host. This can happen if no default route is specified, or if a cable is unplugged. Check the output of `netstat -rn` and make sure there is a valid route to the host you are trying to reach. If there is not, read on to [advanced-networking.html Chapter 19].



***`ping: sendto: Permission denied`*** error messages are often caused by a misconfigured firewall. If `ipfw` is enabled in the kernel but no rules have been defined, then the default policy is to deny all traffic, even ping requests! Read on to [firewalls.html Section 10.7] for more information.



Sometimes performance of the card is poor, or below average. In these cases it is best to set the media selection mode from `autoselect` to the correct media selection. While this usually works for most hardware, it may not resolve this issue for everyone. Again, check all the network settings, and read over the [tuning(7)](http://leaf.dragonflybsd.org/cgi/web-man?command=tuning&section=7) manual page.







CategoryHandbook

CategoryHandbook-configuration