[PLUG] Newbie level DHCP client question

[Douglas Lentz <dlentz@dca.net>]

OK, I was finally able to get an ADSL line. My ISP is DCANet. Received 
the modem, a Zoom 5515 ADSL bridge last week, and (alas), still no 
internet. The installation instructions I received from my ISP and the 
modem manufacturer were both sparse and conflicting. Essentially, they 
said "Plug the modem in and reboot the box, and everything should happen 
automatically" </irritation>.

Here's as far as I have gotten. The DSL modem is hooked up correctly and 
appears to be finding the loop. I think I've eliminated the usual 
suspects. I have told the firewall to allow incoming DHCP. According to 
DCAnet, I have a static IP address, which means they promise to keep 
assigning the same one to me via DHCP. My network interface is eth0. My 
ifcfg-eth0 file reads:

DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=dhcp
ONBOOT=yes
TYPE=Ethernet

/etc/sysconfig/network reads

NETWORKING=yes

Whenever I attempt to bring up eth0, the interface hangs. I don't 
believe that I have a DHCP client running on my box (Red Hat 9). Tried 
DHCPcd, no luck. Discovered that dhclient is already installed. When I 
run dhclient manually, I get

Listening on LPF/eth0/00:40:ca:58:bf:de
Sending on   LPF/eth0/00:40:ca:58:bf:de
Sending on   Socket/fallback
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 10
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 13
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 12
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 17
DHCPDISCOVER on eth0 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 1
No DHCPOFFERS received.
No working leases in persistent database - sleeping.

Still no connectivity to the modem after I have done this. Restarting 
eth0 still causes it to hang.

00:40:ca:58:bf:de is the MAC address, I know that much. I am unclear 
about the rest of it means. Where did 255.255.255.255 come from? Also, 
isn't the traditional port for DHCP supposed to be 68?

The modem is supposed to have configuration software at http://10.0.0.2, 
but I cannot ping this address or open it with Mozilla. Attempting to 
ping my ISP's name server gets me a "connect: Network is unreachable". I 
have a small home network. If I unplug the DSL modem, restore the 
original ifcfg-eth0 file, plug my computer back into the hub and restart 
network services, everything is fine and all the boxes can talk to each 
other - so it can't be a defective ethernet card.   The modem appears to 
be going through its normal boot sequence as described by the 
manufacturer. I know it's connected correctly - I'm using my dialup 
modem now by plugging it into the DSL modem's phone passthrough jack - 
so the damn thing is hooked up to the wall the right way.

Any help or advice would be very much appreciated...and thanks!



















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