[lug] ubuntu networking: when it's bad, it's really, really bad

[David L. Anselmi]

Bear Giles wrote:
> Augh!  For the last few systems the Ubuntu networking 'has just worked'.
>
> But now, after literally doing nothing but moving a system from one room to
> another(*) my networking is REALLY hosed.  The wired network isn't picking
> up DHCP and the wireless networking is totally hosed as well.  I've gone
> through Preferences>  Network Configuration but all of the settings just go
> *poof*.

If you didn't change the Ubuntu system (just moved it to a different room), why are you mucking with 
its config?  Wouldn't it be more reasonable to check the network port etc (which I assume you've done)?

Here's a true story: our office Internet connection went down.  The network admin called and asked 
me to check the network gear--all green and blinky.  So he asked me to trace all the cables and make 
sure there were no bad connections BEFORE HE ADMITTED HE WAS MUCKING WITH THE FIREWALL.  I suggested 
using a laptop and ping to determine whether the problem was inside or outside our building and 
determined that outside the firewall the Internet worked fine.  (Then a Cisco tech had to unscrew 
his "only allow IPsec traffic" rule.)

> (*) Well, strictly speaking, I went from a wired connection to the wifi hub
> to a wired connection to an extension access point.  And I had to replace
> the wifi hub since the old one was getting a little flaky.  But neither
> should matter - several other systems are on that AP without incident and
> DHCP is DHCP.

So it's a DHCP issue, and likely specific to the AP/Ubuntu combination.  Did you collect any data on 
the behavior of those DHCP transactions?

Sorry, I'm thinking about the root cause and not your rant against Ubuntu.  Not very helpful I'm sure.

Dave