Network Configuration Woes.?

hello,

much to many readers chagrin i am quite new to installing and configuring any flavor of linux. my knowledge is limited to the basic user functions that i need at school.

i'm having trouble downloading packages and/or downloading ports via the sysinstall program. for example when doing a post-install configuration of FreeBSD to configure a X desktop (KDE) i attempt to use the "Install from an FTP server" and the "Install from an FTP server through a firewall" options. This yields an error message saying that it cannot resolve host name....

i filled in the network configuration information for my "dc0" ethernet connection (which comes through a linksys router, that i wish to keep as my router/firewall for now) as follows:

host: name.domain.com
domain: domain.com
IPv4 Gateway: 192.168.1.1
Name Server: i took the first DNS server that my router uses
IPv4 Address: i chose an IP outside the range that the router uses for DHCP
Netmask: 255.255.255.0

yes, i have tried searching the forum. google has led me to a lot of pages that gloss over this bit, or only include info on how to make the FreeBSD box into a firewall.

do i have the wrong idea about how this should work?

any help at all is appreciated.
thanks for reading.

Here are a few questions for you to answer.
1. Can you ping 192.168.1.1?
2. What are the contents of your /etc/resolv.conf file. To view the contents, type cat /etc/resolv.conf and paste the results here.
3. Can you ping a public site such as yahoo.com?

1. Can you ping 192.168.1.1?

i can not the message
"ping: sendto: No route to host runs infinitely

2. What are the contents of your /etc/resolv.conf file. To view the contents, type cat /etc/resolv.conf and paste the results here.

i can not locate the file resolv.conf. within /etc the file is just not there.

3. Can you ping a public site such as yahoo.com?[/QUOTE]

i recieve
"ping: cannot resolve yahoo.com: Host name lookup failure"

thanks for responding

Ok, this means your network is not set up at all.

Here's what you need to do:

I. Set up an IP on your network card
------------------------------------
1. Type /sbin/ifconfig and look at the output. You should see something like this:
dc0: flags=....
...
lo0: flags=...
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000

2. To set up an IP (say 192.168.1.10), type this:
/sbin/ifconfig dc0 192.168.1.10 netmask 255.255.255.0

3. Now type [b]/sbin/ifconfig and note the output for dc0 again. It should now say
dc0: flags=...
inet 192.168.1.10 netmask 0xffffff00
4. At this point, you should be able to successfully ping 192.168.1.1. Try it out and make sure you can do this before going to the next stage.


STEP II. Set up the nameserver
-------------------------------
1. Use your favourite text-editor to edit /etc/resolv.conf and add the following line (assuming your nameserver is 192.168.1.1 of course):
nameserver 192.168.1.1

2. Save and close this file. You can add multiple nameserver lines if you have different resolvers. For example:
nameserver 192.168.1.1
nameserver 4.2.2.1


STEP III. Set up your routes
---------------------------
1. Type /usr/bin/netstat -ar and this will show your existing routes. Look for one where the Destination is "default". If it doesn't exist, then we'll need to add it.
2. /sbin/route add 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1
3. Now type /usr/bin/netstat -ar and you'll see a route called "default" with the gateway set as 192.168.1.1
4. Now you should be able to ping www.yahoo.com as well.


STEP IV. Make your changes permanent
---------------------------------------
If all the above has worked, your network is now configured and working. The next thing to do is make sure that your changes are saved so that they're restored on reboot. To do this:

1. Edit /etc/rc.conf with your favourite text editor.

2. Add the following lines:
ifconfig_dc0="inet 192.168.1.10 netmask 255.255.255.0"
defaultrouter="192.168.1.1"

3. Save and exit.

hello,

With your help there has been some progress. After completing Step II default shows up in my Routing tables with the Gateway set to 192.168.1.1. However I am unable to ping "www.yahoo.com".

I am able to ping 192.168.1.1, the response is:

"PING 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1): 56 data bytes
ping: sendto: Host is down
....
ping: sendto: Host is down"

Here is what the routing table looks like:

Internet:
Destination__Gateway______Flags_Refs_Use_Netif_Expire
default______192.168.1.1___UGS__0____36__dc0
localhost_____localhost_____UH___0____0___lo0
192.168.1____link#1________UC___0____0___dc0
192.168.1.1__link#1______UHRLW__1___25___dc0__17

Internet6:
here are many other entries

I don't know if that information is pertinent. What else should I try?

UPDATE:

it turns out that the CAT 5 cable was bad. silly thing like that held things up. thank you for your help Scorpions4ever.