Getting Started, Documentation, Tips & Tricks

Hi everyone, normally I try to work things out myself but this problem has me stumped and I can't find any info on the net to sort my problem out,
I would really appreciate any help or links to sites that could help me fix my 'problem'
I have a SGI Octane, has Irix 6.5.? installed and am trying to get it connected to the internet using a Ethernet to Wifi adapter - specifically a IO Gear lan-ethernet adapter thingy, have set it up and tested that all is working on a windows pc, then connected it to the octane, been through the network setup utility (part of the irix os) but for the life of me cannot get the Octane on the net!!!, I previously tried to connect it to a router and then onto a windows pc to try and share it's internet connection and changed settings all over the place, so may have changed something I shouldn't have, is there any way to 'reset' all settings to default , to start again in case I've changed a setting I shouldn't have? whenever I start netscape and try to go to a page it gives an error about not finding a DNS server or entry or something, I can give specific answers to any questions , but until I know what you need to know I don't want to go on for pages and pages with stuff / observations that aren't relevant, any sites that may be of use? or ideally anyone that could give me a list of instructions would be greatly appreciated, thanks

Did you try to configure your network with the system manager? You can find it in the toolchest under the System menu.

yes, so set up as .. set up and start networking on octane.... interface ef0.......... DIDN'T select 'use DHCP client...... Hostname Octane, then IP Address filled in by autofil, matches address in 'about this system' ,then confirm settings interface ef0, hostname Octane, IP address 169.254.220.195 Netmask 0xffff0000 then performed system restart......... started netscape, tried to goto any bookmark comes up with error netscape is unable to locate the server :home.netscape.com the server does not have a DNS entry , same error with any website entered

njash21 wrote: ... netscape is unable to locate the server :home.netscape.com the server does not have a DNS entry , same error with any website entered

Step 5 of the graphical networking setup is "Name Server Address(es)" ... what's in there ? You need your dns server address, at least one. A second and third is not a bad idea either, a lot of people use Google's ( 8.8.8.8 ) and/or OpenDNS (their ip's are online).

ok added that, noticed on boot up screen has an error on "add net default: gateway x.x.x.x is unreachable " error ... possibly the problem? how do I correct this ? sorry to sound stupid but what does this error actually mean? is it the ip address for the io gear ethernet to wifi adapter possibly or something else? where do I find out what it should be and how do I enter the correct value for it? thanks for your help

Yes the missing gateway ip address is likely the problem. You must fill it with your cable modem ip address for the Octane to reach the net. I think you can set it using the toolchest network tool.

ok set it to ip address of io gear ethernet to wifi adaptor , odd thing is gateway ip address when you querry 'modem' on pc is 0.0.0.0 other listing for fixed ip address is 192.168.1.252 which i entered , still same problem , error on boot up on octane saying gateway is unreachable , tried the adapter for connectivity on pc when I querried it and got internet connection after turning off builtin wifi card , not sure what to do now, maybe the sgi just won't ever work with this adaptor, have tried to set up a lan connection to share the internet connection on my pc and that didn't work either, man, I'm running out of options here , who would have thought connecting an sgi to the net would be such a nightmare....

The gateway has to be in the same network with your Octane (otherwise it would be only reachable via a gateway). If you are using 192.168.1.252 as IP address the gateway is possibly 192.168.1.1. You can try to ping the broadcast address 192.168.1.255 to see who is answering in you network.

njash21 wrote: ... who would have thought connecting an sgi to the net would be such a nightmare....

It's not, actually. 6.5 is pretty easy but these machines are from an era when people had to have some basic networking knowledge to connect stuff.

It's worth having tho, so you aren't wasting your time by learning how a network functions. Ping, nslookup and traceroute are indispensible. Even the Assistant here is pretty good with those, so that when our connection goes down and China Telecom says, "Everything is fine here, must be your problem, reboot your router" I've heard her tell them, "My ass ! Everything in our lan is fine but I can't ping the gateway, that's your equipment, better get someone out here to fix it."

ISP's are the same worldwide. Pacbell was just as bad.

The best one was when we couldn't access a bunch of sites, they sent a "tech" teenager over and he blamed it all on our router. He wanted to hook up his laptop to the wan side of our router but we learned from experience, had a laptop ready and hooked it up. Same-o same-o. So he screwed up thinking we were teenage girls with our first car and said, "That won't work with your laptop, I have to use mine because it has some special software on it." And it did. "Look ! Look ! Everything is fine, must be you !"

Nice Around here you need the magic fairy dust to go where you want I kept watching to see if his pants were going to blaze up.

If we didn't know a little about networking we'd have been stuck standing there paying $587 to have the engine washed, if you don't do that it can overheat.

Knowledge is good, not a nightmare.

njash21 wrote: is there any way to 'reset' all settings to default , to start again in case I've changed a setting I shouldn't have?

whenever I start netscape and try to go to a page it gives an error about not finding a DNS server or entry or something ideally anyone

that could give me a list of instructions would be greatly appreciated, thanks

Might be worth taking a look at how your default route is set. Yours is a fairly frequent complaint, and far more often than not the underlying issue turned out to be a missing/incorrect default route setting.

The default route setting for your Octane can be checked or modified from panel #3 of the Modify Network Settings GUI:

Toolchest > System > System Manager > Networking and Connectivity > Modify Network Settings:

Panel 1: Descriptive Overview
Panel 2: Primary Network Interface -- Enable
Panel 3: Default Route -- Enter the IP address of your Router.
Panel 4: Disable (or enable) IP forwarding -- Disable (unless you have a specific reason)
Panel 5: Set DNS name server entries -- Enter the IP address(es) of your ISP's DNS server(s)
Panel 6: Specifiy host resolution order -- Use "Files - DNS - Files" or "Files - DNS - None"
Panel 7: Confirm your settings -- Review and OK

You can safely ignore the references to slip and ppp and admonitions that the default route should be removed when no longer needed. They weren't intended for someone running a simple home network.

And not to be overly pedantic but your nameserver's IP address needs to be in the file /etc/resolv.conf, what does yours say? To use OpenDNS all you need is two lines in the file, like so:

vishnu wrote: And not to be overly pedantic but your nameserver's IP address needs to be in the file /etc/resolv.conf, what does yours say? To use OpenDNS all you need is two lines in the file, like so:

Code: Select all

nameserver 208.67.222.222
nameserver 208.67.220.220

If he confirms (or adds) his internet provider's nameserver/DNS addresses to Panel 5 of the Modify Network Settings GUI, when he clicks the final OK in Panel 7, the script the underlying the GUI will update all of the necessary configuration files, including resolv.conf.

ok have tried re-entering info in system manager/ networking & connectivity / modify networking settings, have loaded up ip addresses from manual of io gear ethernet to wifi , have plugged in io gear to pc and got properties of adaptor where it lists ipv4 address (of adaptor?) and default gateway settings then used these addresses back on octane, have disabled ip address forwarding, changed dns name server settings to suggestions given, changed host resolution order, but still no luck still same error and no internet connection, tried ping the address suggested a few posts back , get no network connection error, to be honest I am not sure i am even entering the correct ip addresses on the sgi side, I just assume that the ip address that is shown when i plug the adaptor into the pc is the same address when it is plugged into any computer ? or is it just assigned and changes all the time when it's plugged into another system , I am no expert in networking and to be honest, I never seem to be able to figure out any kind of solution unless i just stumble on to it . I can't give you answers to probably basic questions... for instance the ip address of the adapter...... how do i find this out? is it printed on the adaptor ? (can't see it... have looked) is it the addresses you need to enter on the pc when setting up the adaptor initially?, is it the address that comes up when you get the propeties of the lan connection when it is running on the pc...? they are all different and all named things like 'adaptor address' or connection address or lan address , that to me all sound what i am after but they simply don't fix the network connection problem.

The first step is to get connectivity to your adapter. For the octane, that's your "gateway" aka next hop, doorway to the outside world, whatever. If you can't ping that, then you ain't going noplace.

So first you have to know what the adapter address is. Are you using dhcp ? This can create a problem in small networks where the device's ip address can change. A lot of people think dhcp is easier but .... anyway.

There are a couple ways to find the adapter's ip address. You can ping 255.255.255.255 from your Octane. This should bounce back all the device addresses on your lan. However, I have found that some devices don't answer a broadcast ping like that. If you have a Windows computer on the lan, there are several small "network address finder" programs you can freely download. I have one here called "Advanced LAN Scanner", it works okay. Useful sometimes. Like now

If you run that against your lan and find the adapter is at 192.168.123.37, then choose an ip for the Octane which is not used by anything else but that is in the same subnet : e.g., 192.168.123.73 Your gateway for the Octane is then the adapter's ip address. If you are using the router address it won't work because the gateway has to be the next hop, not one two steps down the road.

Save everything, shut down, reboot, and ping. As soon as you can ping the adapter you should be good to go. There may be some settings to deal with in your adapter but communicating between that and the Octane is the first and most important step.

I've used those wireless-to-ethernet things a couple times, they are cool but can be a bit tricky to set up. Hang in there.

ok...ok this did something ..... when i did 255.255.255.255 ping got a list of ip addresses , went through them and this made a bit of sense, got a few starting with 192.168.1.x if x =2 I got someones mobile phone, if x=10 got MBP + someones name (macbook pro?) and x =15 got someones laptop , i think, if x=252 I got tpgi.com.au which must be the ISP they use in my apartment block , (net search found TPGI ISP) so I choose x= 21 for my octane (?) and assume the gateway is x=252 ?

so enter 192.168.1.252 to default route to network routing table (?) , disable IP forwarding, what do I enter for DNS name server entries ? host resolution order at files/DNS/None ??????????

MOST IMPORTANTLY gateway error has disappeared when I boot up

njash21 wrote: MOST IMPORTANTLY gateway error has disappeared when I boot up

Progress is our most important product

So, what happens if you do < ping 192.168.1.252 > ? for example :

ctrl-c to end ... windows just pings 4 times, you have to stop Irix with control-c

If that works, then try an < nslookup ibm.com > (or any other website you like, ibm is just easy to type.)

Oh bejesus .... I have the net on my SGI Octane , finally thanks to last poster, managed to start me down the right track , oddly , I discovered by running out of options that the default route needs to be set to the ip address of the modem down the line, not the ip address of the lan-wifi adapter, then the DNS name server ip addresses I got off the ISP's website after pinging the 192.168.1.1 modem and finding out it was named TPGI (in australia that's an ISP) so worked out that was the modem + a source for finding DNS name server addresses, entered 3 that they listed , changed host resolution order to DNS Files None and I was greeted with a functioning Netscape , last time I surfed the net with that program was on a mac performa 68040 running OS 9 (pre OS X) bloody hell ... but at least I can get other stuff off the net now to run on this thing.... Thanks to all that posted advice to my questions, this lan-wifi adapter was pretty much my last option as far as internet connection went for this machine and now I have it working.... THANKYOU TO YOU ALL FOR YOUR HELP ...