SL 6.1 Live, No network connection

I am using SL6.1 Live Dvd, i read in the forum to connect a router to use the commands:

chkconfig NetworkManager

service NetworkManager.

but nothing changes, must i first install to activate this process.

Many Thanks.

A quick note on communicating with services:

The chkconfig command sets a service to start at boot-time (as in, it will have an effect from the next boot onward), so it won't have much effect on a LiveCD -- if you reboot a CD you're just going to get whatever is on the CD again, not whatever you tried to set up. LiveCD filesystems live in RAM and swap space, so they don't carry state between bootups unless you build a LiveCD specifically to retrieve configuration files from a mounted disk or save state another way like psuedo hibernation.

So on a normal system (installed to a disk) if I want, say, httpd to start automaticaly every time I boot the system I would tell the system chkconfig httpd on and from that moment forward whenever I boot the system to a normal runlevel httpd will be already running in the background. If I do this on a LiveCD the system will forget I said anything at the next boot and just boot the same way every time.

The service command lets you talk to a service right now about something. You can start, stop and restart a service this way, and also send it whatever other special commands that particular service permits from the command line in this way.

So, to start NetworkManager (assuming its not started) you would service NetworkManager start and NetworkManager should start if it wasn't already running. You can find out a little more about what's going on sometimes by trying service NetworkManager restart because you can see the shutdown message (if it was not running, you'll know because the shutdown will fail) and see the start message as well. If the service was already running but was having trouble, sometimes you will get an indication of what's wrong as a part of the restart process. And if something is wrong, it is time to check your logs and find out what's not right.

I can't imagine that NetworkManager isn't already running on a LiveCD. To find out try service NetworkManager status and see what it says. It should tell you that its already running. If it is, then the problem is that your connection is not set up correctly yet. NM's default should be to activate your wired connection and then request a DHCP address from the network you are connected to -- and from the DHCP server it should learn where the DNS servers are, where the gateway is, etc. and be able to create its own routes from there.

If you can't figure things out playing around with the above commands, let us know more about your problem. Specifically:

• Are you on a wired or wireless network?
• Are you trying to connect to the internet through your LAN? (almost definitely yes, but worth checking)
• Are you able to ping another computer by IP but not hostname? (that is, ping yahoo.com fails but ping 67.195.160.76 works fine)
• Do you know if your network uses DHCP or static IP addresses? (Most home and small office networks use DHCP which is served from a router like Linksys, Buffalo, Netgear, etc. which sits between their computer(s) and internet connection)
• Are you connected to the internet through a router or directly to whatever modem/device the ISP provided?

Hi zxq9,
thanks for responding, looks like the best would be to install first.
i will then get back to you.
Many Thanks

Hehe... No worries.

Most likely you will find that networking just works (unless you don't have DHCP running somewhere on your network already -- which is unusual these days).

Hello zxq9,
i installed SL6.1 , but still no network connection, networkmanager is running.
but the boot messages say: service recovery modem .........Fail, meaning that the modem is not seen by the system. the modem is a : Netgear N300 modem.this is very strange with other distro's the modem is seen
quickly.for what reason is the network connection disconnected. i hope we can solve this issue.
regards.

What is the output of ip -d link, ifconfig, and nm-tool?

All of these should be telling you what you have available as network devices in different ways. If your system is identifying its hardware correctly then we should be able to get a MAC for your network interface, and if we get that then we can tell NM where to start fiddling to get things up.

On another note, you said "modem" -- are you using dial-up or an ethernet connection to the computer? This could make a big difference.

Hi zxq9,
sorry to reply so late, i've been busy, but just to let you know my network card
is: Atheros Corporation AR8151 v 1.0 Gigabit Ethernet , i am also using Fedora 15, and i have a network connection, is scientific linux compatible with Fedora.
since there is no atheros ethernet drivers included in scientific linux 6, can i make a package request or
can the drivers be backported from Fedora.
Regards.

Is this a laptop and does the N300 router/modem have wireless that you can connect to? I ask because I have SL 6.1 installed on an Acer netbook with an Atheros AR8152 ethernet controller and Intel Centrino wireless network controller, and I have not been able to establish a network connection using an ethernet cable but can establish a wireless connection (usually it's the other way around).

No kidding...that's interesting...missing driver I guess...never seen that...

The best option here is to report this on the SL mailinglist.
They can decide/check if they left something out or that it is missing in RHEL6 too.
If RHEL6 doesn't have the driver it should be reported on the bugzilla website of Red Hat.

For your information, RHEL6 (and thus SL6) can be compaired to Fedora 12 with some bits and pieces of Fedora 13 (that is why packages for those distros can be installed with little pain on SL6).