Network Manager in Fedora 9

Nearly after one year I again tried to install GNU/Linux on my desktop. Last week I have installed Ubuntu-8.04 in my friend's machine and the desktop was really appealing. So, this time I decided to install the bleeding edge Fedora 9 in my machine.

I have managed some free space in the machine and installed Fedora without much hassles. The installation was very quick and it took almost 40 minutes to complete. Since I was not a casual GNU/Linux user, I ran into a couple of issues. First problem was with the Interrnet configuration. Later I discovered that the DNS address that I gave was wrong. The new Fedora theme and the package manager was wonderful. I added the livna rpm repository and installed my favourite VLC media player. Another great feature is the Malayalam support - after some minor tweakings from SMC, I was able to read and write Malayalam in OpenOffice.org and Mozilla Firefox. Things were smooth until I rebooted the machine next time.

When I reboot the machine, I was again struck with the network problems. This time the configuration was alright, but the NetworkManager has some fatal issues. It always shows Network not connected :(

I tried everything I know - reconfigured the network, rebooted the machine, modified the configuration files, but unable to connect to the network. I have no chance to search and find a solution as I have no connectivity and at last I have to logon to MS Windows ...

After some tedious search I got the solution(Sorry, I forgot to bookmark the link) and copied the page contents to a text file and again logged into the Fedora desktop. It says that desktops with a wired network, doesn't need the NetworkManager service. To increase the usability, in Fedora 9 the older network service is disabled by default.

To switch to using the old network service, I followed the following steps.

First disable the NetworkManager and prevent it from automatically loading:
[root@localhost ~]# /etc/init.d/NetworkManager stop
Stopping NetworkManager daemon: [ OK ]
[root@localhost ~]#  /sbin/chkconfig --level 35 NetworkManager off
You can also run the setup command and turn the NetworkManager off by pressing the bar.

Next, configure your network settings:

[root@localhost ~]# system-config-network
You should have an eth0 device already showing. To configure the IP settings click on Edit. Set the DNS address and then Save the settings.

Next, enable the service :
[root@localhost ~]# /etc/init.d/network start
Bringing up loopback interface: [ OK ]
Bringing up interface eth0: [ OK ]
Make sure it loads at next boot:
[root@localhost ~]#  /sbin/chkconfig --level 35 network on
(You can also use the setup command)

Now I was able to connect to the Internet and post my first blog about Fedora. :)

Comments

Herve A said…
Thanks. It helps me
Manoj Malviya said…
Thanks. This help me too.
Unknown said…
Thanks this helped. My network went down when I updated the kernel.
Unknown said…
While this helped, I noticed that system-config-network also had a check box on the General Tab that need to be checked to be controlled by Network Manager. Being a command line type, I found this frustrating that I had to use a gui to fix a problem. Also, where are the configs stored?
Coder928 said…
The network configuration files are located in a number of places:

Hostname & Gateway: /etc/sysconfig/network
Network Devices: /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts/ifcfg-[]
Name Servers: /etc/resolv.conf
Hosts: /etc/hosts
libregeek said…
I have experienced similar problem in Fedora 10 also.

In my case, NETMASK provided through system-config-network didn't got saved in the config files.

This was due to a bug (469434) in system-config-network package and on installing the latest system-config-network package using yum solved my issue.

The recent release of NetworkManager is pretty stable and it's recommended that you update NetworkManager package also.

Popular posts from this blog

Configure PostgreSQL and phpPgAdmin in WAMP

Angular - 4 year road map

Flash FLV player using PHP