[olug] Networking and NIC issues. Coaching

[Don Kauffman]

I'll be bringing my RH 7.2 Linux box with some networking issues to the 
Installfest. I'd like some coaching on resolving the issues. Basically 
it has two Realtec NICs and a built in Thunderbird LAN (TLAN) NIC.  I 
had been using the TLAN as eth0 and one of the realtec NIC's as eth1. It 
worked fine until a couple of months ago when the TLAN no longer worked 
. I removed that as a module option from the kernel and went with 
another Realtec NIC as eth0. This worked well for a couple of months  

What happened lately  is that it again seems to recognize the TLAN and 
wants to assign it as eth0. (I get this information from dmesg | grep 
eth0.) Since I removed that as an option from the kernel and point to 
the one of the RTL NICS that kinda screws everything up. By now You are 
wondering  (probably) "why doesn't  he just recompile the kernel with 
the TLAN as an Option. and see if that works?" Two reasons: 1> the TLAN 
went out before and I'm not likely to want to trust it again. 2> I'm a 
little lazy and I'd like verification that recompiling is indeed what I 
need to do!  

When I do ifconfig -a the odd thing is that it brings up all the 
networking devices but two of them have the same MAC address. I am 
CONFUSED BY THIS! (Shouting Intentional but not directed at anyone ;-) ) 
. I'm hoping someone will be able to coach me through a troubleshooting 
 and repair.

-- 
Don Kauffman
Email: mailto:dkauffman at tconl.com
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"There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those that don't."