Thank you very much for your analysis Patrick. Much appreciated. Just to clarify the points you have raised.
The login screen is the gnome graphical login, where one types a user name, then password to use the computer. I believe the hostname of the computer is being set by the modem, as when I disconected this computer from the modem and connected another, the name of the other computer is imposed upon this one when I reconnect it. Only one computer is ever connected to the modem at one time. I'm not trying to network many computers, just have a nice, fast & reliable net connection. The modem is something called a Motorola 'surfboard' and it claims on it's box that it is a 'cable modem' (I'm being careful here as I am well out of my depth with networking and hardware - this is both) The laptop was certainly called 'debian' being the default on installation of the debian distro. Gnoppix http://www.gnoppix.org (The Gnome based Knoppix) calls itself 'credativ' I did also boot Koppix at one point, which renamed the connection as well, to something else which now escapes me. I believe these names are being stored in the cable modem or at a computer on the Telstra side of things. Thus renaming this computer to whatever is being stored. My shell now reads [EMAIL PROTECTED], if I can impose my will on what comes after the @ I guess everything will fall into place. My idea was rather than renaming the conection in /etc/hosts everytime something else gets booted plugged into the modem, to get RH9 to rename the connection when it boots and connects it. So it's /etc/hosts will always be fine. How did I set up the connection? I plugged the modem into the USB, installed BPA login and from there it 'just worked' no I don't know much about it. /etc/hosts The 'Link' lines were added by myself after much googling, they work in as much as they make the error messages go away on login to Gnome, which makes M & D more comfortable. They came from a script that was designed to update the IP address if it isn't static. Possibly a sub-optimal solution... there is no /etc/network/interfaces on this RH9 distro, nor is there an /etc/hostname. I'm going to try changing /etc/sysconfig/networking/ifcfg-lo commenting out NAME=loopback inserting NAME="Ashburner" So we'll see if that goes well...(just a little scary this kind of stuff, when you have no clue, reminds me of the time I set this thing up with eth0 as a 'trusted device' then connected it to the cable modem, D'Oh!!!) Thanks again for your help, Patrick. Hal From: Patrick Lesslie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [SLUG] Net connection: welcome to debian/credativ/whatever To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Here's a fairly vague analysis ... Surely someone can just hit this nail on the head ... anyone? On Fri, Sep 26, 2003 at 09:30:23PM -0500, Hal Ashburner wrote: > I'm writing from my parent's box which is running RH9 & Gnome on the > desktop, which incidentally as self-proclaimed 'proud luddites' they > both absolutely love using in comparison to the other computing > alternatives they have tried previously. > > The box hooks up to the net with Telstra big pond cable, which goes > ok. My problem is this, I once hooked up my laptop running debian to > the same modem, which then seemed to re-name the connection to > 'debian' the login screen on red hat said "welcome to debain" then I'm not sure I understand this bit. Which login screen do you mean? If you mean the main one into the window manager, then it looks like you have set the hostname to debian. > logging into gnome said it was unable to resolve 'debian' and to add > debian to /etc/hosts. (which I did) Sounds like this was just a guess by gnome or some program, and you probably don't really want that. How did you set up the connection on each machine? > I then booted Gnoppix on their box to see how that went, > and the connection was renamed credativ You must mean Knoppix ;) They might use "credativ" as the hostname ... I don't think so ... This might be a bit strange. Otherwise where are all these names coming from I wonder? > and the same error message. > Obviously I have no clue about what I'm doing here, ideally I'd like > to be able to give the connection/computer a name on boot from RH9 > something like "Mum & Dad's box" or just "Ashburner" Any suggestions? :) "ashburner" would be a good choice. Look out for spaces and fancy characters in hostnames. I prefer shortish lowercase hostnames. The computer name is the hostname, and that should be fixed. I'm not sure what kind of name the connection needs. Do you know how you first set that? What did you use to set up the cable on each distro? Are you running a local network? I'm also not quite sure what is going on. However, I'd suggest that the hosts file(s) might have something to do with it. What I would do is post any network configuration you have to the list, especially the contents of /etc/hostname, /etc/hosts, /etc/network/interfaces (debian specific?) or whatever the redhat equivalent to that is, and let the cable experts on the list fix them up for you. There is much more to explain but I think we'd better find a bit more about the question. You might do well to check out Chapter 8 of the Redhat 9 Reference: http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-9-Manual/ref-guide/ 144.136.71.171 is your (assigned) static IP address, on the interface (likely eth1 or eth0) that is connected to the cable modem. FWIW you might try some things like this: On the redhat machine: /etc/hosts 127.0.0.1 localhost 144.136.71.171 ashburner ashburner.domain.if.you.have.one You might not need that second line. Also, /etc/hostname: ashburner > 127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost > debian hostname.domain.com > Link > 144.136.71.171 debian hostname.domain.com > Link > 144.136.71.171 credativ hostname.domain.com And was that an exact copy of /etc/hosts? I don't recognise the "Link" lines, I'm sure they shouldn't be there ... Patrick Lesslie -- __________________________________________________________ Sign-up for your own personalized E-mail at Mail.com http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup CareerBuilder.com has over 400,000 jobs. Be smarter about your job search http://corp.mail.com/careers -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
