HelpDesk: Answers to Common Questions

Click on the questions below for solutions to common problems.

How do I make a boot disk?

How do I format a stiffy

My clients do not want to boot

Yesterday I did browse the internet but when I came to my
lab today I couldn't. How do I fix this?

I was just busy working on my computer and all of the sudden everything
went blank on the screen. What happened? How do I get it back?

How do I mount my floppy?

Why is my school's name wrong on our homepage?

My modem was working fine but today when i try to dial out,it gives me a
dialling tone but hangs up the line.

I am trying to save something to my floppy disk but I am getting an error
message: disk not formatted.

Yesterday I did browse the internet on my clients but when I came to my office today I couldn't.

• Check if the hub is on. The power light should be on.
• Check if there is a green light for a very network cable for the clients
• Check if the phone line is correctly connected to the modem. (Are you sure it's connected to the port that goes from the modem to the wall, and not the one that's designed for hooking up a telephone to the modem?)
• Check if the modem is on: there should be at least two red lights.
• Check if the modem is connnected to COM1 at the back of the computer but not COM2. (The ports look the same. The names should be printed above each port).

I was just busy working on my computer and all of the sudden every thing went blank on the screen.

You should check if the power cable are correctly connected at the back of the
screen and dont forget to check if there is a green light on the screen.

Did the power fail? If so, call the HelpDesk and tell the person who answers that the power has failed at your school and you want to check your filesystem.

Iam trying to save something to my floppy disk but I am getting an error
message disk not formatted.

This could be for a number of reasons, but let's start at the beginning.

How do I mount my floppy disk?

On the desktop, right click the floppy disk icon and choose 'Mount' from the list.

Otherwise, mount the disk using commands in text mode.Get to the text mode by launching a shell terminal (click the icon on the taskbar marked with a clamshell) or
by pressing

• Ctrl+Alt+F1, Ctrl+Alt+F2, or Ctrl+Alt+any other F-key up to 6.

Then, in text mode or in the console (shell terminal) Type in the following command:

mount /dev/fd0 /media/floppy

The green activity light should turn on near the floppy drive.
To see the contents of the disk,
type

ls /media/floppy

If you don't, and get an error 'you must specify filesystem type' try this command:

mount -t msdos /dev/fd0 /media/floppy

If this works, then return to your graphic mode by pressing

• Ctrl+Alt+F7 or typing exit into the console

if this doesn't work, try formatting your floppy. (THIS WILL ERASE ALL CONTENTS ON THE FLOPPY DRIVE). But it will let you save new documents afterward.

Schoolnet came to install some computer at our school. The problem we have is my schoolname is gabriel Taapopi High S and schoolname that is appearing there is Mweshipandeka High school.

On the start panel go to the konsole (shell a small icon.) log in as root with the root's password

type in the following command:

vi /usr/local/htpd/htdocs/schoolname.txt

Hit ESC
press Shift+colon keys(:)
write in wq! (This means write the changes to the file, then quit) Press enter key

How do I create a new user.

I cannot send mail when I try to send it with SquirrelMail.

Sometimes this is a problem with the way the server and the clients communicate. If you're using Konqueror as your browser, click on Settings and choose Configure Konqueror. Click on Konqueror Browser as it appears on the left hand side. Then click the Javascript tab along the top. Click into the box next to the words 'Enable Javascript Globally'. Then click apply and ok to close the Settings Window.

go to yast 2 module-->network/advanced-->sendmail configuration.
tick the box with HOST WITH TEMPORARY NETWORK CONNECTION.

1. NETWORK MODULE FAILED (NETWORKCARD)

press:

Cntl+Alt+f1(you will be in the text mode)

Go to highlight the network module, press enter, select the network card that is in your computer.

ESC to exit the yast menu.

CTRL+ALT+F7

How to Make a Boot Disk

Boot disks contain drivers (instructions) that allow the client computer to communicate with the server. If your boot disk doesn't work, you have to make a new one. Not just any boot disk (also called a Boot ROM) will work on a particular client. You have to make the right one for the kind of network card that's installed on your client.

Step 1: Checking The Network Card Type

So, firstly, you have to

• Check what network card is on a client:
• Go into text mode or open a shell terminal.
• To go into text mode, click Ctl-Alt-F1.
• To open a shell terminal, click on the icon marked with a seashell.
• It's in the toolbar on the desktop.

Make sure you're logged in as root (a hash # mark will appear at the end of the host name if you are)

vi /etc/dhcpd.conf

This means you want to view (vi is the command for view) the file dhcpd.conf in the directory /etc/

A long file appears on the screen. Scroll down until you see the word Group on the left hand side. (You can also type / and then NIC to force the computer to search for the word NIC. This will place your cursor at the word NIC.

The file will look something like this:

Some of the information might look different, particularly the letters and numbers after 'hardware ethernet' and option 128. You'll have at least as many Host entries as you have clients. Look at each Option 129 in each host file.

What we're interested in is the entry next to Option 129.

This is where the server records the name of your clients' network interface cards, or NICs. Write down what you see in the line next to Option-129 Once you've taken a note of the kind of NIC you have, close the file. Do this by pressing shift and the ; key together. Then type q! to quit without saving.

Step 2 : Formatting a Floppy

fdformat /dev/fd0

mkfs.ext2 /dev/fd0

Step 3 : Mounting a Floppy

Here you are going to mount your disk and make sure your disk is not write protected. type in the following command

mount /dev/fd0 /media/floppy

Step 4 : Making the boot disk.

You are now ready to create your bootdisk
type in the following command

cat /tftpboot/boot/bootroms/lts/3c509.lzdsk> /dev/fd0

Then unmount the floppy with the command:

mount /dev/fd0

*If you get the message 'device is busy', you must
type

cd /

*Note, if your NICs aren't 3c509, then you'll have to use another bootrom. It's in the same directory, but the driver file will be called something different. The most likely other kind of NIC you'll have is RTL8039. The bootrom you should pick will be rtl8039.lzdsk

Hit enter and your bootroms will be copied to your disk.

Client troubleshooting

In order for clients to boot, they must have boot disks inserted into the floppy drives. So the first thing to check is that the

• Clients have the right disks.
• Check if they have boot disks.
• Check whether the bootdisks are working:
• Put the bootdisk in the drive.
• Make sure the server is running
• Turn on the client machine.

ROM segment 0x0800 length 0x4000 reloc 0x9400Etherboot 5.0.1 (GPL) Tagged ELF for [LANCE/PCI]Found AMD Lance/PCI at 0x1000, ROM address 0x0000Probing...[LANCE/PCI] PCnet/PCI-II 79C970A base 0x1000, addr 00:50:56:81:00:01Searching for server (DHCP)...

Once you see that the client knows what kind of network card it has, and is busy asking the server for an IP address (that's what's involved in what's called DHCP), you know the bootrom works.

If you don't get a readout on the screen like what's printed above, and you've tried all the boot disks you have, you'll have to try to make another. see How to make a boot disk

One client boots but not the other. What do I do?

Check the connections:

Is the workstation physically connected to the same network that the server is connected to?

With the workstation turned on, make sure that the link lights (green lights at the back of the computer where the cable goes into the computer) are lit at all of the connections. Check for a link light at the hub. For each cable going in, there should be one light lit right above the place where the cable goes in. Then check the boot disk. Use the boot disk from the client that works in the client that doesn't. Turn the computer on and see if it boots.

Neither of my clients boots. What do I do?

Check the connections as above. Then check that the server is responding to the clients when they start up. This will happen according to a protocol (a way of doing things) called DHCP, which stands for dynamic host control protocol.

To see if DHCP is running, you need to be sitting at the server and logged in as root. Dhcpd normally sits in the background, listening on udp port 67. Try running the netstat command to see if anything is listening on that port:

netstat -an | grep ":67 "

udp 0 0 0.0.0.0:67 0.0.0.0:*

The 4th column contains the IP address and port, separated by a colon (':'). An address of all zeroes ('0.0.0.0') indicates that it is listening on all interfaces. That is, you may have an eth0 and an eth1 interface, and dhcpd is listening on both interfaces.

Just because netstat shows that something is listening on udp port 67, it doesn't mean that it is definately dhcpd that is listening. To make sure that it is the dhcpd that is running, try running the ps command.

ps aux | grep dhcpd

You should see something like the following:

root 23814 0.0 0.3 1676 820 ? S 15:13 0:00 /usr/sbin/dhcpdroot 23834 0.0 0.2 1552 600 pts/0 S 15:52 0:00 grep dhcp

The first line shows that dhcpd is running. The second line is just our grep command.

If you don't see any lines showing that dhcpd is running, then you need to check that the server is configured to start.

You can try starting dhcpd with this command:

service dhcpd start

Pay attention to the output, it may show errors.

Double Check the configuratoin:

Does the /etc/dhcpd.conf file have an entry for your workstation?

You should double-check the 'fixed-address' setting in the config file, to make sure it exactly matches the card in the workstation.

Still doesn't work? Call 0800 00 57 93