Problem setting up wired networking

[Michal Jaegermann]

On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 07:39:36PM +0000, Anne Wilson wrote:
> On Tuesday 11 November 2008 17:31:22 Michal Jaegermann wrote:
> > On Tue, Nov 11, 2008 at 07:40:14AM +0000, Anne Wilson wrote:
> > > Networking is the one aspect of Fedora that always confuses me.
> > > It seems to me that on a laptop I want/need NetworkManager to work
> > > with wifi wherever I am working.
> >
> > Usually wifi gets its addresses through DHCP and you want for
> > that NetworkManager running.
> >
> > > OTOH, at home I would generally want to work with wired.
> >
> > If you are in control of a corresponding DHCP server (a big IF) then
> > the the easiest way is to, _on that server_, lock up a particular IP
> > number to a MAC address of a wired interface of your laptop,
....

> 
> My router does handle dhcp, and yes, you can reserve addresses.

Very good.

> Unfortunately 
> it seems to be aware of the present conflict.  It lists the new laptop with 
> the dhcp address, but when I tell it that I want it to reserve a different 
> address (the one that I gave to NM) it tells me that that address already 
> exists.

I think that you misconfigured something.

On your router:
   - ask it to give always the same address for a specific MAC
     (which will be a MAC of a wired interface of your laptop)
   - that address you want to reserve should be from a pool of
     addresses which your router gives out via DHCP
   - if this is a wireless router then you can reseve an address for
     your laptop wifi interface too and that will be a different MAC
     and a different address than above
On your laptop:
   - configure your wired interface to be handled by DHCP and that
     means that you do NOT give any specific address; it will always
     get one you reserved on your router anyway
   - let NM handle all interfaces; i.e. 'BOOTPROTO=dhcp' and
     'NM_CONTROLLED=yes' for every interface configuration file.
   - 'service network stop; chkconfig network off' and make sure
     that NM service is on and running

That is the simplest and the most flexible - in a sense.  It only
depends on capabilities of your DHCP server but you are telling that
yours is "good enough".

Your router, quite sensibly, may not like to reserve an address
which is already in use; especially if it was not given out by a
DHCP lease.  It sounds like a resonable sanity checking. :-)

> If I reserve the address I could use dhcp.  I want a static
> address, one way or another, so that when I read the logs I know
> which computer it is referring to.

Nominally this address will be not "static" as it will require
a DHCP lease; but with the above it will be always the same.

   Michal