[lug] ifconfig question

[Anthony Foiani]

Davide Del Vento <davide.del.vento at gmail.com> writes:

> I need my ethernet mac address (security guys need to allow my machine
> to connect), so I type "ifconfig -a"

Try "ip link"?

On one of my systems (with three ports, two used):

  $ ip link
  1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 16436 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN 
      link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
  2: p8p1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000
      link/ether 00:e0:4c:88:42:d0 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
  3: p1p1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP qlen 1000
      link/ether 6c:fd:b9:3c:f3:a9 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
  4: p3p1: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state DOWN qlen 1000
      link/ether 00:1a:a0:1a:5e:75 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

> Now, this is a just installed Ubuntu 10.04 on a brand new Dell, so
> there might be missing drivers. In fact, the wireless doesn't see
> any of the several wifi connections I have around (which I can see
> with another similar, but older machine). Is there such a thing as a
> Ethernet card driver?

Yes, although any sane distribution should include drivers for as many
supported cards as possible...

> If so, how do you break the loop? Am I stuck in an even more serious
> than this https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/239082 kind of
> problem?

... although proprietary drivers are still annoying.

As others already mentioned:

* dmesg

  On the same machine as above, running Fedora 15 x86-64:

    $ dmesg | grep -i ether
    [   17.359372] r8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver 2.3LK-NAPI loaded
    [   18.563070] ssb: Core 0 found: Fast Ethernet (cc 0x806, rev 0x07, vendor 0x4243)
    [   18.593438] b44 ssb0:0: eth2: Broadcom 44xx/47xx 10/100BaseT Ethernet 00:1a:a0:1a:5e:75
    [   76.773455] Bluetooth: BNEP (Ethernet Emulation) ver 1.3

* ip link

* lspci

  Again, same machine:

    $ lspci | grep -i ether
    01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8075 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 10)
    04:07.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4401-B0 100Base-TX (rev 02)
    04:09.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8169 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 10)

  Adding a "-v" flag will tell you which driver has claimed the
  device:

    $ lspci -v -s 01:00.0
    01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8075 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 10)
            Subsystem: Lenovo Device 3045
            Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 43
            Memory at fdefc000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
            I/O ports at ac00 [size=256]
            [virtual] Expansion ROM at fdb00000 [disabled] [size=128K]
            Capabilities: <access denied>
            Kernel driver in use: sky2
            Kernel modules: sky2

* lsusb

  If you have USB sticks.  I had horrible, horrible issues with a usb
  802.11g stick, and I haven't bothered trying it again.

  The "-t" option shows you which driver has associated with each
  port.

Anyway.  If the default install doesn't include the driver(s) you
require, then you'll obviously have to add them somehow.  Maybe
download them onto a thumb drive and copy them physically?

Check to see whether security has a "guest network" that they allow
any MAC to connect to?  If you do have a driver for *some* interface,
you should be able to use such a network to download the drivers you
need for your preferred interface.  (Although, controlling access to a
wireless LAN by MAC seems like very weak security, given that MAC can
be changed/spoofed fairly easily.)

Good luck!

t.