Dhclient not working: Where to look next?

[skyking]

I recently built a freebsd samba server for a friend. he is connecting via a netgear mr814 router, and it seems the router will not find the mac address or route any traffic to it unless it assigns an address via Dhcp. We tried using an assigned address in rc.conf, but no joy trying to route port 22 on in from the WAN.
I had him put in the entries for dhcp, and it worked OK after that.
Fast forward to today: After changing hardware and building a custom kernel, Dhclient fails to get an address. We replaced the motherboard, but everything else stayed the same. I can assign an IP manually, and it works fine, but I cannot remotely administer it.The router simply will not forward to a mac addy that it has not bound to an IP.
I did not change dhclient.conf, and have the proper entries in rc.conf. Any ideas??

 

[TheOmegaCode]

a n y e r r o r s ?

 

[skyking]

No errors, only a lack of an addy. ifconfig shows all is well, except for the 0.0.0.0 part

 

[TheOmegaCode]

has it ever worked? is your nic working? your dhclient.conf look good? etc, etc...

 

[skyking]

It worked before the custom kernel build. Dhclient.conf was unchanged, but I rewrote it anyway to see. NIC works fine if I assign it an address manually, either via ifconfig or in rc.conf. Just quit doing the dhcp thing!

 

[skyking]

Any other ideas? could the NIC (intel pro 100) just not initialize sufficiently to get going for dhclient, if it ifconfigs fine manually? I am stumped by this one, and if the router behaved properly, it would not be a problem. I would rather have a fixed IP on a server any day.
Samba works perfectly on the lan, and ssh works fine on the lan, I am only stopped from remote access.

 

[skyking]

up for another look.....n0c and nothinman are lurking..........

 

[Nothinman]

If you messed with the kernel you probably left someting out that dhclient needs, since you're using FreeBSD I have no idea what that might be

 

[cleverhandle]

On Linux, I think that DHCP needs the Packet Filter option. Don't know how that corresponds to FreeBSD, though - if at all.

edit: This old doc mentions the bpfilter psuedo-device. Maybe that's a lead...

 

[skyking]

thanks guys! I will see if Ken left out the Bpf. He built that kernel while I did some other things on the box, so I will have to investigate it. ( gotta love those true multi-user operating systems)

 

[n0cmonkey]

Have him use the default kernel configuration when building new kernels. Its easier, and unless its a really old box, the customizations typically won't help enough to be worth the time and effort.

 

[skyking]

Yes it is old, hence the custom kernel. a 133 on 64 mb of 72 pin ram.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: skyking
Yes it is old, hence the custom kernel. a 133 on 64 mb of 72 pin ram.

I said old, not mediocre.

 

[skyking]

you meant old, like 486? nah, it is a 586 at least

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: skyking
you meant old, like 486? nah, it is a 586 at least

I meant old like sparc3/4 machines.

Default kernel should be fine for now. After more reading and playing, custom kernels will be a lot easier.