A simple way to connect to Ethernet from the command line?

[dancapp]

Hi everyone. I’ve dug myself into a bit of a hole and I’d really appreciate some help. I’m running Ubuntu with KDE, 64 bit and would describe myself as beginner-intermediate. Here’s what happened:

For no reason at all a load of applications uninstalled themselves. After some research I found out I needed to install a specific component of the ‘Policykit’ package (which as it turns out, I probably already had). Installing this then created a situation where I had to choose which user (my own name duplicated twice) must give permissions to update etc. This was a small problem that I could have lived with but I stupidly tried to fix it by uninstalling Policykit. Little did I know that this would make my OS unbootable.

So now when I boot I get a message saying I can’t log in (sorry I don’t know the exact message as I’m away from the computer right now). But the long and the short of it is that I need to repair from BASH and here’s where I’m having problems.

When I try to ‘apt-get install update’ or ‘install policykit’ from the command line it ‘fails’ to retrieve the package. I’m fairly sure this is because I’m not connected to the Internet – would this be right?

So…

Can someone talk me through connecting to my Ethernet from the command line? I’m hoping I don’t need to create/edit config files because this will take me to the limits of my understanding. But I can do that if need be. I basically just need a temporary fix in order to briefly connect to the Internet, install policykit and be able to boot into my nice comfortable KDE environment so that I can do everything with GUIs rather than commands.

Thanks in advance.

[rnerwein]

hi
as i understand - you have a terminal to type in commands - wright ?
if that's true try on the command line the command: ifconfig
did this command shows you a line like:
inet Adresse:192.168.2.xxx Bcast:192.168.2.255 Maske:255.255.255.0
if you see this line - you are conected to the internet.
if not try: ifdow and then ifup
try: ifconfig again. whats the result now.
if you got an IP then you can use: sudo apt-get what_you_need
much luck
ciao

[dancapp]

Thanks rnerwein - I think that's going to help and I'll try it out this evening when I'm home from work.

Like your signature by the way!

[dancapp]

hi
as i understand - you have a terminal to type in commands - wright ?
if that's true try on the command line the command: ifconfig
did this command shows you a line like:
inet Adresse:192.168.2.xxx Bcast:192.168.2.255 Maske:255.255.255.0
if you see this line - you are conected to the internet.
if not try: ifdow and then ifup
try: ifconfig again. whats the result now.
if you got an IP then you can use: sudo apt-get what_you_need
much luck
ciao

Hey, I tried this with no luck. ifconfig shows this:

Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
(... a load of other info - should I post it all?)

There is no 'Bcast' address and still no connection. When I type ifdown -a and ifup -a I get no feedback at all, Any ideas?

[dancapp]

I've now got the 'Bcast' IP address yet when I ping google it says 'unknown host'. Do I need to set up a route host and all that stuff?

[matt_symes]

Hi

Packages don't generally uninstall themselves unless there are dependency issues. That will need some investigation.

Have you looked at reinstalling policy kit from the pool in a Ubuntu CD/USB ?

Can someone talk me through connecting to my Ethernet from the command line?

Let's get some information first about the state of your system, post the output of these commands in their entirety.

From the terminal: Take and upload photos if you find that easier.

cat /sys/class/net/eth0/carrier
ifconfig
service network-manager status
route

and then

dpkg -l | grep policykit
dpkg -l | grep polkit

With this information, we should be able to see where you are. We will not be working blind.

Kind regards

[dancapp]

cat /sys/class/net/eth0/carrier
ifconfig
service network-manager status
route

dpkg -l | grep policykit
dpkg -l | grep polkit

Many thanks Matt. As follows:

cat /sys/class/net/eth0/carrier
1
ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:24:8c:91:0c:0e
inet addr:127.0.0.0 Bcast:127.255.255.255 Mask: 255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: fe80::224:8cff:fe91:c0e/64 Scope:Link
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX Packets:9 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:756 (756.0 B) TX bytes:4300 (4.3 KB)
Interrupt:43 Base address:0xa000

lo Link encap:Local loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask: 255.0.0.0
inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1
RX Packets:28 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX Packets:28 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:2184 (2.1 KB) TX bytes:2184 (2.1 KB)

service network-manager status
network-manager start/running

route
Kernel IP routing table
Destination....... Gateway....... Genmask .....Flags...... Metric...... Ref..... Use........ Iface
default.............. 127.0.0.0 ......0.0.0.0 .........UG .........0 .............0......... 0............ eth0

[matt_symes]

Hi

You have an Ethernet connection to the router so that is good.

Let's try to get you an IP address.

At the terminal type

sudo dhclient eth0

Post back on the output and the results of (after the command above)

ifconfig
ping -c 2 8.8.8.8
nslookup www.bbc.co.uk

If that does not work then type

sudo service network-manager stop

and repeat the above commands.

EDIT: Also post the output of

ls /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.policy

EDIT 2:

You forgot to post the output of these two commands

dpkg -l | grep policykit
dpkg -l | grep polkit

EDIT 3:

Can you also post the output of

grep ".*[0-9] remove" /var/log/dpkg.log

Kind regards

[dancapp]

Thanks again Matt. Yes I realised this morning I forgot to post the output of:

dpkg -l | grep policykit
dpkg -l | grep polkit

Unfortunately I'm at work away from my Ubuntu system so I'll get back to you this evening with the output.

[dancapp]

Hi Matt. After doing the 'dhclient eth0' thing...

ifconfig
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:24:8c:91:0c:0e

inet addr:127.0.0.0 Bcast:127.255.255.255 Mask: 255.0.0.0

inet6 addr: fe80::224:8cff:fe91:c0e/64 Scope:Link

UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1

RX Packets:24 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

TX Packets:40 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000

RX bytes:2858 (2,8 KB) TX bytes:8718 (8.7 KB)

Interrupt:43 Base address:0xc000

lo Link encap:Local loopback

inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask: 255.0.0.0

inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host

UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:16436 Metric:1

RX Packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

TX Packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

collisions:0 txqueuelen:0

RX bytes:0 (0 B) TX bytes:0 (0 KB)

ping 2 8.8.8.8
PING 8.8.8.8 (8.8.8.8) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=1 ttl=44 time=41.4 ms
64 bytes from 8.8.8.8: icmp_req=2 ttl=44 time=36.3 ms

--- 8.8.8.8 ping statistics ---
2 packets transmitted, 2 received, 0% packet loss, time 1001ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 36.366/38.899/41.432/2.533 ms


nslookup www.bbc.co.uk
Server: 192.168.1.254
Address: 192.168.1.254#53

Non-authoritative answer:
www.bbc.co.uk canonical name = www.bbc.net.uk
Name: www.bbc.net.uk
Address: 212.58.244.70


ls /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.policy
ls: cannot access /usr/share/polkit-1/actions/org.freedesktop.NetworkManager.policy: No such file or directory


dpkg -l | grep policykit
rc policykit-1...........................................0.104-1ubuntu+fixed1..................(I assume you don't need the description)
rc policykit-1-gnome................................0.105-1ubuntu3.1................
ii policykit-1-desktop-privileges.................0.10..................

dpkg -l | grep polkit
rc lib32polkit................................0.96-0~ppa1................
rc lib32polkit-qt................................0.95.1-0~ppa2................
rc libpolkit-agent-1-0................................0.104-1ubuntu1+fixed1................
rc libpolkit-backend-1-0................................0.104-1ubuntu1+fixed1................
rc libpolkit-gobject-1-0................................0.104-1ubuntu1+fixed1................
rc libpolkit-qt-1-0................................0.95.1-1fakesync1...............
rc libpolkit-qt-1-1................................0.103.0-1...............
rc libpolkit-kde-1................................0.99.0-3ubuntu5................