Internal YES, extneral NO
by jcf. Average Reading Time: less than a minute.
I have struggled to install Debian on my new file server. With the new installer disk this was a breeze – until it tried to download additional packages from the internet. Turns out that I had access to my internal network, but no access at all to the external world.
I checked the things one checks in this situation: ifconfig: OK, /etc/network/interfaces (OK – and I tried both DHCP and static), route -n (route to the internal network and to the ADSL router as gateway: OK), /etc/resolv.conf (had the DNS servers of my provider, but I couldn’t ping them), IPCHAINS – emtpy table), network cable (changed several times), router ports (plugged it in into one port that I know worked)
Nada. Nothing. Installed the 2.4 kernel instead of the 2.6
Booted with an old Knoppix CD: Nothing
Is it possible that a network card only connects to an internal network? Am I going mad?
This is the internal network card of an Dell PowerEdge 1400 SC.
HELP!
I don’t know much about your network setup, but I’ve seen those symptoms when I have forgotten to tell my gateway that the new IP is allowed to access the external network.
Indeed – it was like that. I had set my wireless router to only allow certain MAC addresses to the net. When I switched cards and left DHCP on, it worked. When I switched to static IP, it failed. That tipped me of to look at that setting eventually.
Oh the joys of technology. We continue to have more and more of it, and it tends to make life more difficult in the long run.