system:
destop
openSUSE 11.4 KDE
single wired network connection
running as a headless server
upgrade from 11.1
Problem:
I had a bunch network services running under 11.1 with KDE. Now after upgrade to 11.4 full network functionality is broken. I was using ifup but now is broken. Between ifup and NetworkManager I can demonstrate the full required range of functionality but not all at the same time (the union of functionality of each provides the full required functionality, but not individually). WOL does work in all cases.
With ‘ifup’, it seems that everything is ‘working’ as before, but services are broken when accessed from outside. eth0 up and fuctioning with statically assigned IP. Outgoing connections seem to work - I can browse the web. But trying to access services from outside is broken. VNC is rejected. Connecting to SMB shares reports login error. TFTP doesn’t respond. SSH connection is rejected.
Although sometimes it will get in a state that everything except VNC works (connects but then is dropped upon login with “Error while waiting for server message”) but I can’t consistently reproduce this state other than it seems to happen after some extended period of time.
I have verified the firewall is off and apparmour is off.
On the other hand, everything works with ‘NetManager’ (both KDE and Plasmoid) with no other changes. The problem here is that it does not seem possible to set a static IP address - eth0 doesn’t show up in the list of wired interfaces to be able to select and edit. That’s problem 1 - I need a static IP. (I suppose I could reserve an address at the DHCP server, but a static IP works 100% to get the right address). The other problem is that neither NetManager starts at boot and only start after login at the console - that won’t work as I never log in at the console. (I suppose I could set it up to login automatically into a console or something but I would rather not)
There is a problem with nmb, samba, apparmour and openSUSE 11.4. Here is a link on the nmb issue:
Samba set up : nmb is not starting
I suggest you break your issues into single items and search around the forum for a fix on each.
Thank You,
I’m not so sure about that. Not saying it isn’t, but the behavior doesn’t seem to reflect that. They all don’t work (reject connections) with ifup and they all do work with NetManager. So I find it hard to believe that they would all have their own individual problems that would make them all not work with ifup. The common thread seems to be ifup vs NetManager, not anything to do with the individual services. And what’s more, as I mentioned originally, sometimes they do start working eventually with ifup and when they do start working, they all work (except for the business with VNC dropping the connection after login). Now, I think the VNC problem dropping the connection after login may be a separate problem because this happens once it starts accepting a connection under ifup to even get to that point (when everything else is also then working). But then again, with NetManager I can login with VNC. But as I said, I can’t consistently reproduce the situation where they work under ifup. I don’t know if it is some ‘magic’ sequence of trying to connect or what, because there is nothing going on locally that would bring it up as the machine isn’t even logged in (sitting at the login screen).
So maybe the question should be rephrased as what does ifup and NetManager do differently such that ifup would prevent connections to services? Does xinetd behave differently bewteen ifup vs NetManager? Is there some signal frome ifup that is broken such that xinetd doesn’t work properly? Are the daemons not getting started under ifup (ok, I need to go look at the process table to see what exactly is running and when) or are incoming connections simply getting rejected?
Just a couple more things. You indicate you did an “upgrade” as opposed to a clean install. Is that correct that you did an upgrade? When you do a clean install, all applications are reinstalled from scratch and can ensure no oddities can occur from a mixture of program versions. Anytime you do a clean install, if you have maintained a separate /home area, there is no need to reformat it and thus you can maintain your personnel settings. As for Network Manager, the main reason to use it is you switch between two or more network connector on a regular basis such as between wireless and wired on a laptop. If you intend on using a wired connection and/or a fixed IP address, I’d stick with ifup. Ifup and Network Manager both share and have separate configurations. Anytime ifup works and Network Manager does not, I can suggest some files to remove. If, however, the issue is due to a real inline upgrade, I would suggest a clean install is the next step to take, in particular when going from 11.1 to 11.4. If however, you really did a clean install and want to use Network Manager, I can suggest a few more steps to take.
Thank You,
Yes I did an upgrade and not a clean install. The reason being that I have many tools set up, such as cross compilers and cross debuggers, etc. that I don’t want to get blown away, not to mention all of the services I have configured that I don’t want to have go back and set up again.
Actually it’s the opposite problem, ifup does not work and NetManager does work. I need to use ifup because (I believe) NetManager is not consistent with how this machine is used. The 2 issues are (1) eth0 does not show up under wired interfaces so I can’t set a static IP (is this ‘normal’ to not have such control over eth0 in NetManager?) Maybe this can be resolved. But the other problem with NetMangaer is (2) that it doesn’t start until login. I need the services up at boot time, which ifup used to do. NetManager is probably great for it’s apparent intended target audience of laptop users, but that doesn’t work in my case - a headless service provider that can be managed remotely. Having to log in physically at the machine to get NetManager up breaks that. Mostly I use WOL to wake it up and if I need to use the desktop for some reason, I use VNC.
Here is a zypper repos terminal command from my PC (using my bash script mmcheck). Lets see what yours look like:
2 . Display All openSUSE Repositories as Entered in your Computer ...
Command: zypper repos
# | Alias | Name | Enabled | Refresh
---+----------------------------------+----------------------------------+---------+--------
1 | Contrib | Contrib | Yes | Yes
2 | KDE3 | KDE3 | Yes | Yes
3 | Packman | Packman | Yes | Yes
4 | Updates-for-openSUSE-11.4-11.4-0 | Updates for openSUSE 11.4 11.4-0 | Yes | Yes
5 | openSUSE-11.4-11.4-0 | openSUSE-11.4-11.4-0 | No | No
6 | repo-debug | openSUSE-11.4-Debug | No | Yes
7 | repo-debug-update | openSUSE-11.4-Update-Debug | No | Yes
8 | repo-non-oss | openSUSE-11.4-Non-Oss | Yes | Yes
9 | repo-oss | openSUSE-11.4-Oss | Yes | Yes
10 | repo-source | openSUSE-11.4-Source | No | Yes
If you have more than nine total repositories listed above, you could cause yourself
some trouble. In general, repositories must be given a priority when you have
more than nine. If you do not understand how this works, please ask for help.
Listed below are the recommended repositories you should keep in YaST. (?=Version)
1) Packman-1 - http://packman.jacobs-university.de/suse/openSUSE_11.?/Essentials/
2) Packman-2 - http://packman.jacobs-university.de/suse/openSUSE_11.?/Extra/
3) Packman-3 - http://packman.jacobs-university.de/suse/openSUSE_11.?/Games/
4) Packman-4 - http://packman.jacobs-university.de/suse/openSUSE_11.?/Multimedia/
5) Main Update Repository - http://download.opensuse.org/update/11.?/
6) Main Repository - http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.?/repo/oss/
7) Main Repository - http://download.opensuse.org/distribution/11.?/repo/non-oss/
8) Debug Repository - http://download.opensuse.org/debug/distribution/11.?/repo/oss/
9) Source Repository - http://download.opensuse.org/source/distribution/11.?/repo/oss/
Press <enter> to continue...
I think we are going to need to go through YaST to find what files might be mixed up. So, lets start by trying to fix your ifup setup. ifup is part of sysconfig. I show that my version is 0.74.5-5.1 in YaST, what is your version? Did you know that files shown in red in YaST can mean an orphaned program, perhaps no longer in the new repositories for openSUSE 11.4 which needs to be manually updated or removed?
In terminal I suggest you perform the following two terminal commands and report back on your findings:
sudo zypper refresh
sudo LC_ALL=C zypper ve
Thank You,
zypper repos report:
| Alias | Name | Enabled | Refresh
–±---------------------±---------------------------±--------±-------
1 | openSUSE-11.4-11.4-0 | openSUSE-11.4-11.4-0 | Yes | No
2 | repo-debug | openSUSE-11.4-Debug | No | Yes
3 | repo-debug-update | openSUSE-11.4-Update-Debug | No | Yes
4 | repo-non-oss | openSUSE-11.4-Non-Oss | Yes | Yes
5 | repo-oss | openSUSE-11.4-Oss | Yes | Yes
6 | repo-source | openSUSE-11.4-Source | No | Yes
7 | repo-update | openSUSE-11.4-Update | Yes | Yes
YaST repositories:
I do not have any Packman repos
I have the others (version = 11.4) plus a “debug update” and the original install cd
So that’s 7 repositories configured. They are all set to priority 99.
My sysconfig version is the same - 0.74.5-5.1 in YaST.
Also:
X:~ # zypper refresh
Repository ‘openSUSE-11.4-Non-Oss’ is up to date.
Repository ‘openSUSE-11.4-Oss’ is up to date.
Repository ‘openSUSE-11.4-Update’ is up to date.
All repositories have been refreshed.
X:~ # LC_ALL=C zypper ve
Loading repository data…
Reading installed packages…
Dependencies of all installed packages are satisfied.
Thanks
So the next step I would take is to make sure all is updated. I would add in Packman, but not required for a headless server perhaps.
YaST / Software / Software Management / Package (menu option top left) / All Packages / Update if newer version available AND select Accept in the bottom right corner. Here is my general blurb on package updates from mmcheck…
“To avoid package problems, the most important thing to do is to: NEVER
ignore a dependency, even if YaST/zypper/updater gives you such an option!
In general, never switch to an >inferior< architecture and the solution is
most often to just switch Vendor to the >Packman< repository. So changing
the vendor is OK, but >ignoring< dependencies is never a very good idea!”
Thank You,
Did you turn off IPv6 ? If not, do so, reboot is needed.
If this does not help, please post output of:
su -c ifconfig
please post the result between CODE blocks, makes it more readable
Does the server have a static IP? If not try, use DNSes 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 and ‘Gateway/Router-IP’, set Gateway IP to your router’s internal IP. If you can reconfigure the networkcard, it would mean it’s at least recognized and has a driver.
Edit: I prefer a clean install, not because of possible issues, but mainly because each time I find that configuration tools have improved and make configuring the many services on my server / workstation, less painful and time consuming. I have it up and running in about 2.5 hours. NFS, NIS, LAMP and on and on.
So here’s what I found:
First I built another machine with a fresh 11.4 install (which I was going to do anyway which is what precipitated this upgrading to 11.4 on this machine in the first place)
I did a diff between /etc on both machines
Not much was that different, but I did see that some entries regarding network in init.d that were different. I expected possibly differences in the config files, not so much in init.d.
But anyway, using YaST/Services in expert mode, I found the following diffs:
on the broken machine but not on the “fresh” machine:
avahi_dnsconfd was enabled
network and network-remotefs were both set for runlevel 2 in addition to 3 & 5 (only 3 & 5 on the working machine)
I disabled avahi-dnsconfd; and turned off network and network-remotefs at runlevel 2 (leaving 3 & 5 only).
Now the network comes up instantly as expected when using ‘ifup’.
I don’t know why this caused a problem (I never changed these directly myself before) but it did seem to fix it.
However, I still have the problem with ‘ifup’ that VNC drops the connection after logging in (VNC works fine with NetManger) - so I still have some sleuthing to do on that front. But otherwise I am back to a (mostly) usable system. The crucial services are now functioning again and I don’t use VNC much anyway, so I’m basically back in business.
Thanks All for your help
On to fixing VNC…
So here's what I found:
First I built another machine with a fresh 11.4 install (which I was going to do anyway which is what precipitated this upgrading to 11.4 on this machine in the first place)
I did a diff between /etc on both machines
Not much was that different, but I did see that some entries regarding network in init.d that were different. I expected possibly differences in the config files, not so much in init.d.
But anyway, using YaST/Services in expert mode, I found the following diffs:
on the broken machine but not on the “fresh” machine:
avahi_dnsconfd was enabled
network and network-remotefs were both set for runlevel 2 in addition to 3 & 5 (only 3 & 5 on the working machine)
I disabled avahi-dnsconfd; and turned off network and network-remotefs at runlevel 2 (leaving 3 & 5 only).
Now the network comes up instantly as expected when using ‘ifup’.
I don’t know why this caused a problem (I never changed these directly myself before) but it did seem to fix it.
However, I still have the problem with ‘ifup’ that VNC drops the connection after logging in (VNC works fine with NetManger) - so I still have some sleuthing to do on that front. But otherwise I am back to a (mostly) usable system. The crucial services are now functioning again and I don’t use VNC much anyway, so I’m basically back in business.
Thanks All for your help
On to fixing VNC…
Wow, what a good job of finding the difference there. The avahi_dnsconfd service is disabled on my two computers and I assume this may be associated with using your computer as a DNS server perhaps? In any event, good luck with locating your final problem. By the way, this procedure is still a good one to follow for updating existing installed software:
YaST / Software / Software Management / Package (menu option top left) / All Packages / Update if newer version available AND select Accept in the bottom right corner.
Thank You,