Wired internet is not working for Marvell card in Toshiba Satellite

[MajinSaha]

Please see my post below.

[MajinSaha]

Wow! I almost lost all hope and was ready to accept the fact that my firmware was broken. This advice here

So as a test, note down the MAC address of the second computer which has a working connection, then disconnect it. Using the same "sudo ifconfig.." command, assign the same MAC address to your computer, then connect it to the same cable which was connected to the second computer. If that gets you connected, it is the university's networking policy that is preventing it from getting connected (by not accepting an unknown MAC address).

worked like magic! I'm writing this post using this new cable connection on my laptop! I intentionally disconnected from my wireless to test new connection! Thanks, you're a wizard!
So, it seems my card is not broken after all?
How can I make this change permanent?
I have to type

sudo modprobe -v sky2
sudo ifconfig eth0 hw ether 00:22:19:ff:2f:ee
sudo ifconfig eth0 165.91.119.145

every time to get connected ( well, maybe without the first command ).
So it seems it was university's policy that didn't let me connect. And now I broke that policy. I'm not even sure if that's bad or not.
My logical questions would be: when I use other cables in the future, what MAC address should I assign to my laptop? It seems this trick here worked specifically with the MAC address from another machine that was connected before ( your previous MAC address did nothing, as you may remember ), but I may not have such resources in the future and would like to be independent of other machines.
And I guess I won't need to test anything with HBCD?

[varunendra]

So, it seems my card is not broken after all?

Not as badly as I initially suspected, but the awkward MAC address is an indication that not everything is fine either. But as long as it works with a manually assigned IP, it is at least usable.

How can I make this change permanent?
I have to type

sudo modprobe -v sky2
sudo ifconfig eth0 hw ether 00:22:19:ff:2f:ee
sudo ifconfig eth0 165.91.119.145

Assuming you are using Network Manager, save this MAC address (00:22:19:ff:2f:ee) in the "Cloned MAC address" field of your wired connection settings. On next boot, it should automatically assign this address to your card. Use "ifconfig" command to confirm that. And yes, the first (modprobe..) command is unnecessary.

So it seems it was university's policy that didn't let me connect. And now I broke that policy. I'm not even sure if that's bad or not.

..and I helped you breaking the policy, certainly not the right thing from a wider perspective, but let me save myself by saying I just provided help to make sure the card itself is functional and the problem was external.

My logical questions would be: when I use other cables in the future, what MAC address should I assign to my laptop? It seems this trick here worked specifically with the MAC address from another machine that was connected before ( your previous MAC address did nothing, as you may remember ), but I may not have such resources in the future and would like to be independent of other machines.

Unless the other networks too impose MAC based restrictions, any imaginary MAC address would do, including the one I proposed earlier. But if such restrictions are in effect, there is no other way in my knowledge other than 'Spoofing' an address that the router/firewall is allowed to connect to.

And I guess I won't need to test anything with HBCD?

Well.. you can still do the experiment to test whether the card gets a valid MAC address with windows drivers or not. If not, it means the card is indeed broken in some way (hardware or firmware), although it is usable.

[MajinSaha]

Assuming you are using Network Manager, save this MAC address (00:22:19:ff:2f:ee) in the "Cloned MAC address" field of your wired connection settings. On next boot, it should automatically assign this address to your card. Use "ifconfig" command to confirm that. And yes, the first (modprobe..) command is unnecessary.

Not sure what you mean by Network Manager, but I went to "Edit connections..." at the top right corner of the screen. When I chose my Wired connection 1 and clicked Edit..., I saw a mentioned field "Cloned MAC address", but it didn't let me save the MAC I typed in, the Save button was inactive. I tried both lower and upper case letters for e and f in the address.

I guess this discussion is about to end, so the question above is not really crucial, but if you know how to work around this little issue, that would be helpful. Maybe with command line and sudo?

If I find time, I'll try to check my card with HBCD, but it's not likely I'll post any comments here on that. I guess I'll mark this thread as SOLVED after your next post.
Thanks for your help, this was awesome and really professional of you! At least now I know what to start playing with when I need to get me a cable internet. Have a nice day!

[varunendra]

Thanks for your kind comments and sorry for not being able to respond quickly.

Not sure what you mean by Network Manager, but I went to "Edit connections..." at the top right corner of the screen. When I chose my Wired connection 1 and clicked Edit..., I saw a mentioned field "Cloned MAC address", but it didn't let me save the MAC I typed in, the Save button was inactive. I tried both lower and upper case letters for e and f in the address.

The Network Manager is the name of the program that provides that menu you used, so you are indeed using it.

But not being able to save the settings is something unusual. I simply copy-pasted the MAC id from my previous post into an existing connection and the 'Save' option was active for me. The only reasons I can think of are :

1) a typo (for example, incomplete id, or a blank space before or in-between the address "00:22:19:ff:2f:ee"). In this case, the "Save" button will become inactive as soon as you make the typo, otherwise it will stay active.

2) Permissions issue. Means you are not authorized to edit that connection. In this case, the "Save" button will stay inactive from the beginning, even when you haven't made any changes. If you are able to create new connections, you can simply delete and recreate this one (or create a new one) to overcome this problem.

The second type of problem above shouldn't arise if you are the only (and first) user on the Ubuntu installation on that laptop. So the first reason is more probable.

if you know how to work around this little issue, that would be helpful. Maybe with command line and sudo?

Sure. You can 'force add' this line -

cloned-mac-address=00:22:19:FF:2F:EE

under the "[802-3-ethernet]" section in your 'KeyFile' for the connection.

The keyfile is the file that stores all the critical information about connections. It is located in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections directory and its name is usually (maybe always) the same as the connection name (by which it appears in the drop-down menu of nm-applet which you clicked). It is a privileged file and can be read or edited only by root.

You can open the file with gksu or sudo as follows -

gksu gedit /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections/MyConnection1

..then add the line under the relevant section. The name "MyConnection1" is just an example and "gedit" the text editor (will be different for different Desktop Environments).

The contents of an example file with the above "Cloned MAC address" is -

[802-3-ethernet]
duplex=full
cloned-mac-address=00:22:19:FF:2F:EE

[connection]
id=My Connection 1
uuid=<some alpha-numeric characters>
type=802-3-ethernet
timestamp=128882020

[ipv6]
method=ignore

[ipv4]
method=auto

You can also use the /etc/network/interfaces file to spoof the MAC id and ignore Network Manager altogether, but that is not recommended unless you are really comfortable with the 'interfaces' file and the methods related to it.

[MajinSaha]

I re-checked: there was no typo and no spaces in the field. I'd have attached a screenshot of how it looks, but this forum only allows to attach pictures from URLs.
And what really surprised me is the fact there was no file "Wired connection 1" in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections. All I saw was files of different wireless connections that my laptop experienced connecting to at various times.
So I decided to create it with sudo. I followed your pattern ( for alpha-numerical characters of uuid I just typed several random digits ). Then I replugged the cable ( didn't reboot though. Did I have to? ). Nothing changed in the window of the Network Manager.

[varunendra]

And what really surprised me is the fact there was no file "Wired connection 1" in /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections. All I saw was files of different wireless connections that my laptop experienced connecting to at various times..

I'm not very sure but I guess it is so because the connection was never created by Network Manager. We established it with the help of command "ifconfig" which is independent of Network Manager.

Instead of directly creating the keyfile, try creating a dummy wired connection (by any name) from Network Manager itself (nm-applet drop-down menu > "Edit Connections..." > "Add"). It should create the key-file with a valid UUID and the rest of fields in it. While creating the connection, use the "Cloned MAC address" trick. Does it allow creating a connection that way?

If not, I wonder if you have required privileges on that installation. To verify that, please post the outputs of -

id
ls -la /etc/NetworkManager/system-connections

Funny how I'm enjoying this thread despite having little to no success..

[MajinSaha]

I created a new connection "Dummy" and erased the previous one. I typed in "Cloned MAC address" and saved, but I noticed it didn't let me save once I started typing in the "Device MAC address" field, so I left it blank. Same thing was happening with the "Wired connection 1" ( before I deleted it ), the Save button became active once I removed the contents of the "Device MAC address" field.
After reboot, I saw no signs of improvement. I, again, had to assign both the new MAC and IP addresses from the command line to make "Dummy" connect.
The output you requested:

uid=1000(saha) gid=1000(saha) groups=1000(saha),4(adm),20(dialout),24(cdrom),46(plugdev),116(lpadmin),118(admin),124(sambashare)

and

total 108
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan  6 16:28 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Dec 17 10:35 ..
-rw------- 1 root root  303 Nov 29 07:45 Ag Swag
-rw------- 1 root root  222 Nov 26 20:08 Ag Swag-guest
-rw------- 1 root root  210 Nov 26 16:10 attwifi
-rw------- 1 root root  234 Nov 30 20:38 Austin & Jake-guest
-rw------- 1 root root  231 Dec  8 09:36 Belkin_G_Wireless_
-rw------- 1 root root  349 Dec 13 18:23 BitchDon'tKillMyVibe
-rw------- 1 root root  348 Sep 10  2012 CAES-AUSSOIS
-rw------- 1 root root  213 Jan  6 16:28 Dummy
-rw------- 1 root root  210 Nov 23  2012 FON_MTS
-rw------- 1 root root  344 Dec  1 09:30 HTC Portable Hotspot
-rw------- 1 root root  210 Jul  9  2012 libfree
-rw------- 1 root root  233 Dec  8 09:32 linksys
-rw------- 1 root root  351 Oct 31  2012 Livebox-c13a
-rw------- 1 root root  334 Oct 28  2012 Livebox-c13a 1
-rw------- 1 root root  320 Jul 12  2012 NAMDEMUN
-rw------- 1 root root  233 Dec 29 10:45 NETGEAR
-rw------- 1 root root  309 Dec  3 20:56 Plochistan
-rw------- 1 root root  225 Nov 26 20:49 print server 372A0F
-rw------- 1 root root  327 Nov 27 21:52 suddenlink.net-AFCE
-rw------- 1 root root  209 Dec  7 09:33 TheZone
-rw------- 1 root root  212 Jun 27  2012 TRENDnet
-rw------- 1 root root  218 Jun 27  2012 TRENDnet652
-rw------- 1 root root  309 Jul  9  2012 VGBIL_Free
-rw------- 1 root root  220 Aug 28  2012 WIFI-ADM-UM2
-rw------- 1 root root  220 Nov 22  2012 WIFI-AIRPORT

[varunendra]

I typed in "Cloned MAC address" and saved, but I noticed it didn't let me save once I started typing in the "Device MAC address" field, so I left it blank.

What were you typing in the "Device MAC address"? It is only meant for 'binding' the connection with one of your network interfaces (so that connection can only be established using that particular interface). It should offer you to choose from a drop-down list of detected (wired) interfaces.

Also, the "Save" button remains inactive only until the address is correctly completed (it can't let you save an incomplete address). So the behaviour you mentioned sounds normal to me, but.... -

We finally seem to have some more clue, unless the following is a copy-paste mistake -

uid=1000(saha) gid=1000(saha) groups=1000(saha),4(adm),????,20(dialout),24(cdrom),????,????,46(plugdev),116(lpadmin),118(admin),124(sambashare)

Where is disk? Where is sudo? Where is dip?

You not being a member of 'disk' group may be normal, but not being a member of 'dip' group is a bit suspicious, and not being a member of 'sudo' group is certainly mysterious, unless the above is a copy-paste mistake.

If the above is correct and full output of 'id' command, then either I need to learn a lot more about Linux user groups, or there is something seriously wrong with permissions on your system. I wonder how you have been able to run the commands with 'sudo' when you are not a member of that group. I'd like to see the output of -

sudo cat /etc/sudoers

And I don't remember if I proposed it earlier, but can you try a Live CD/DVD/USB to see if all is well there?

[MajinSaha]

I'll try to respond more fully soon, but for now:
the output from the last command is

#
# This file MUST be edited with the 'visudo' command as root.
#
# Please consider adding local content in /etc/sudoers.d/ instead of
# directly modifying this file.
#
# See the man page for details on how to write a sudoers file.
#
Defaults	env_reset
Defaults	secure_path="/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin"

# Host alias specification

# User alias specification

# Cmnd alias specification

# User privilege specification
root	ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

# Members of the admin group may gain root privileges
%admin ALL=(ALL) ALL

# Allow members of group sudo to execute any command
%sudo	ALL=(ALL:ALL) ALL

# See sudoers(5) for more information on "#include" directives:

#includedir /etc/sudoers.d

and for command "id", the output is the one I got the second time. There is no typo, as well as no "disk", "sudo" and "dip".