Wired connection in network manager, but cannot ping - looking for an education

English Network/Internet
1

Hi all -

I admit that my understanding of networking problems is pretty limited. I’m running 12.3 in the VirtualBox VM on my Windows computer, and am trying to connect to a secure network through a university. Usually there is a login page that my browser redirects me to, but I can’t even get that far. Here are some details:

taylor@linux-b8oo:~> ping google.com
ping: unknown host google.com


taylor@linux-b8oo:~> cat /etc/resolv.conf
### /etc/resolv.conf file autogenerated by netconfig!
#
# Before you change this file manually, consider to define the
# static DNS configuration using the following variables in the
# /etc/sysconfig/network/config file:
#     NETCONFIG_DNS_STATIC_SEARCHLIST
#     NETCONFIG_DNS_STATIC_SERVERS
#     NETCONFIG_DNS_FORWARDER
# or disable DNS configuration updates via netconfig by setting:
#     NETCONFIG_DNS_POLICY=''
#
# See also the netconfig(8) manual page and other documentation.
#
# Note: Manual change of this file disables netconfig too, but
# may get lost when this file contains comments or empty lines
# only, the netconfig settings are same with settings in this
# file and in case of a "netconfig update -f" call.
#
### Please remove (at least) this line when you modify the file!
search tufts.edu
nameserver 192.168.2.1
nameserver 130.64.25.5
nameserver 130.64.35.5


taylor@linux-b8oo:~> /sbin/route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
0.0.0.0         10.0.2.2        0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0
10.0.2.0        0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0


taylor@linux-b8oo:~> /sbin/ifconfig 
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 08:00:27:34:08:40  
          inet addr:10.0.2.15  Bcast:10.0.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::a00:27ff:fe34:840/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:492 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:813 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:45742 (44.6 Kb)  TX bytes:104483 (102.0 Kb)


lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:65536  Metric:1
          RX packets:155 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:155 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:12254 (11.9 Kb)  TX bytes:12254 (11.9 Kb)

I suspect the problem lies somehow in the nameserver lines of my resolv.conf file, having compared to several other postings? If this is an obvious fix, could someone tell me what jumps out at them? Thank you so much,

Taylor

2

For starters, is your client configured using DHCP?

For some reason you aren’t pointing to a DNS on your same network and it’s unknown whether you can reach any public DNS server and a public DNS server almost certainly wouldn’t point you to a local authentication server.

You may also want to avoid any re-directs that may or may not work by pointing your web browser to the IP address of the login server.

TSU

3

Usually VM solutions let you connect your VMs to one or more networks…
terms such as Bridged, NAT, and Host-Only come to mind. With that said,
how is your VM solution configuring this VM for connectivity to a network?
Also, where on your system(s) do you have 192.168.2.x IP addresses? Is
that the DNS server for your host, for example? Can you ping by IP
address, for example to the gateway (10.0.2.2) or to a public address
(8.8.8.8 for one of Google’s public DNS servers)?

Good luck.

4

If you have a DHCP Server then try changing Virtaul Box Connection to bridged network and add the following addresses 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 as “AB” said

5

Thank you all for your replies,

TSU: I believe that the client is configured with DHCP, but I’m not sure I understand your reply well enough to be able to comment further.

ab: You’re right - I am able to ping by IP address, which suggests that this is a DNS issue of some kind.

nishanth: I changed to bridged network and am now able to ping by domain name, not just IP!

At the moment, the problem would appear to be resolved. Thank you for your help! I find it strange, however, that when I first created the VM (using NAT) I had not problem accessing the internet.

Taylor

6

Your previous network configuration was faulty, missing DNS.

Your solution now works either because

  • When configured as “bridged” your network configuration was obtained from a different DHCP server which did include DNS
    or
  • When configured as “bridged,” by being on the main network DHCP might be misconfigured but your machine was able to overcome any IP addressing issues by using broadcasts.

TSU