Network problem: NICs won't rise and have MAC 000000000000

Aeroflop · n00b Joined: 21 Oct 2007 Posts: 9

Ok, I'll have to admit - I'm stuck. I have Sun Netra X1 and I'm trying to install Gentoo on it, to make it a decent firewall. But I have a problem, while I can't get the network up on Linux - both NIC's are showing MAC-address 00:00:00:00:00:00. I can associate IP-address on a NIC, but I can't lift it up, ifconfig eth0 up says SIOCSIFFLAGS: Invalid argument. I don't know if the cards have been disabled somehow or is it just a problem with the Linux driver (FreeBSD gets the nics up, but I honestly don't have bounds of interest to study pf, while I already have fully working configs for Netfilter/IPtables and I know how it works). It's not the traditional same-MACs-on-SPARC-syndrome (yep, I tested the local-mac-address -setting, no use).

Any help available, I'll grant a thank.

-Aero
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Hw setup: x86, x86-64, MicroSPARC, UltraSPARC, MIPS, Alpha EV67, CBM
Sw setup: Gentoo Linux, Debian Linux, SGI Irix, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, WinXP, MS-DOS

mamac · l33t Joined: 29 Feb 2004 Posts: 890

Hi,

How did you configure the driver, is it external module or from the kernel?

Do you have the interface up with the installation CD?
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Aeroflop · n00b Joined: 21 Oct 2007 Posts: 9

mamac · l33t Joined: 29 Feb 2004 Posts: 890

If the gentoo CD doesn't support your card you can give a try to just any other livecd (e.g. ubuntu), see if network works and install from there.
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Powered by Gentoo Linux since 2003

Aeroflop · n00b Joined: 21 Oct 2007 Posts: 9

Gentoo CD does support the card - it has modules for it etc, MACs just show 00:00:00:00:00:00 and the cards won't rise. I installed Gentoo manually (transferred the needed tarballs with USB-stick), and managed to get the network up. Then I bolted the harddisks to where they belong, removed the CD-ROM drive, closed the lid and booted the system back up - and once again I'm lacking MACs.

I'm currently checking my kernel config, there's some faults from the first run, after that I'll get back fighting with the network.
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Hw setup: x86, x86-64, MicroSPARC, UltraSPARC, MIPS, Alpha EV67, CBM
Sw setup: Gentoo Linux, Debian Linux, SGI Irix, NetBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, WinXP, MS-DOS

huehnerhose · n00b Joined: 26 Jun 2003 Posts: 56 Location: Berlin

Also this post seems rather old, I have the same problem. But I think I know why I have it

My NICs lack of MAC after resetting my NVRAM caused by a password problem, which I fixed using a second, blank, NVRAM.

So my actual NVRAM has an invalid HostID and "forgets" every boot the MAC... I think there is a connection
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