Network Connectivity Issues after moving drive to WHS

[mgrotte]

I converted my Windows home server to amahi and I cannot access the apps anymore and I cannot browse the internet thru vnc on amahi.

I took a hard drive out of the WHS and put it in another pc to load fedora 14 and amahi on it. Everything went great with the install. I installed webmin and vnc before moving the drive to the whs so I could have remote access in case something went wrong like it has. In order to get the network card to work after moving the drive to the whs I had to do the following two things to get it to work so I could atleast connect to it after the move.

I edited the /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net-rules file and deleted the entry that contained the info about the mac id of the install pc.

then I edited the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-eth0 file and also deleted the line with the mac address on it.

I found that this needed to be done from a couple different websites for the nic to work after the transplant. The problem is that it passes all the network tests but it cannot load any websites. It resolves dns and all my pc's on the network work great with it but I cannot load any new apps due to the network issue. It almost seems like it has a issue with the default route but I checked this thru webmin and everything is fine. The system worked fine before I edited these two files for the transplant but if I do not do this before the transplant the network will not work at all. This is my last speed bump in getting my whs converted to amahi and I really hope someone out there has a idea what I did wrong.

Thanks,

Mark

[mgrotte]

So I have made some progress on this. I have discovered that I can only go to certain websites almost like it is using a proxy. I can go to google.com, blackberry.com, ibm.com and also all .edu sites After researching this I discovered that this is a issue with the on board sis 191 network adapter driver for linux since the kernel that FC 14 uses is a little old. It looks like I need to modify the driver by editing the sis190.c file which covers both the sis 190 ans 191. I found a how to article on the howtoforge site but I have also ran into some issues with this since the driver file does not match up with the one he is using and the isa bridge does not actually have a number on it like in the how to article. If anyone has had any success in fixing this network issue on a windows home server with amahi please leave me some bread crumbs.

[radioz]

I wouldn't mess with trying to get that working. Just pick up a $5 NIC card and run with that (get a used one!)

[mgrotte]

I should have mentioned that this is a HP EX470 windows home server. I cannot just add a new nic card but I shure wish I could, it would make this painful project end. I am almost to the point of going out and buying a new tower just so I can be done with this. I was just trying to utilize my ex470 since I did not want to use WHS anymore.

[mgrotte]

I finally found the fix for this issue and I hope this helps someone else too. After doing alot of research on this problem I have found that the default MTU size on the SIS191 network card driver is set incorrectly. I used webmin which I loaded onto the HP EX470 WHS before I did the hard drive transplant back to this headless machine and I just edited the network interface and changed the default MTU to 1496 and after I applied the changes the app page started working again. Alot of the info I was finding for problems with ISA Bridge problem related to the nic card was from older kernels and had already been repaired. It is amazing how easy of a fix this was for all the searching I had to do. This fix also applies to many laptop boards use this same nic card, the driver is SIS190.c and it covers both the sis190 fast ethernet and the sis191 gigabit ethernet card.

Here is the link to kernel.org with the info I found to fix this issue. https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13862

[radioz]

Hey, nice work! I'm glad you got it sorted and thanks for sharing the solution with us.

Just out of curiosity, what was the original MTU setting?

[mgrotte]

The original MTU size was 1500 so changing it to 1496 was not a big change but I have found that some people have to change it to 1024 depending on the rev of the board. Mine was a rev01 that used a ISA Bridge at 966 where most people had the bridge at 968. This is also on a HP EX470, which I think was the first model of the HP WHS that they released. One other last note about this driver is that the current fedora kernel (2.6.35.14) allready has the ISA bridge fixed in the driver so anybody reading this should not bother trying to rebuild the kernel like found on some other sites, since it is allready corrected, I verified it. I am now having issues with the ata driver crashing the kernel when I add hard drives to the system. Looks like I have a little more fun left in this project!!! I have a friend that works for Oracle and he builds custom kernels so I think it is time to call out for help on this one.

[milesroces]

It's a bit confusing how the settings alters the network connectivity. This shouldn't be the case since all settings are set by default unless their car compatibility issues with the hard drive right?

[jmontelongo]

mgrotte you're the best!
I had been racking my brain all last week trying to find a solution.

By the way, I didn't use webmin (although I installed any way and is great), I just opened a remote terminal via ssh and it did the trick

Thanks!

jtM