First check that you have link lights on all ports of your switch. Since you have the server and the client separately plugged into the switch you should only be using straight-through cables. The only pins you need to be worried about is 1, 2, 3 and 6. As long as they are right then the rest don't matter.
Check that you have a working straight-through patch cable from kitchen to laptop. Also, the entire run from the PC to the switch should be less than 100 meters. Also consider that the connectors may not be properly crimped (inspect the gold contacts on the RJ45 and the flush box pins).
It is possible that you could have untwisted the cables too much, but you would be pretty unlucky if that was the case, you can get away with a good 2cm.
On your PC do the DHCP request and monitor the server:
tail -vf /var/log/messages
Incoming and outgoing DHCP requests will appear there. I am sure you already knew that though.
Another thought, is this a smart switch? Perhaps ports have been configured to be blocked or on a different subnet (LAN).
Good luck, Michael.
At 12:25 p.m. 6/03/2004 +1300, you wrote:
I got my crimping tool, rj45 crimp plugs and a flush box at DSE. I put the flush box at one end of the cable and an rj45 plug at the other end.
Tested with LAN cable tester (also DSE) and every pin is connected in the right order.
Plug the rj45 plug end of the cable into the switch and plug the laptop into the flush box which is mounted on the kitchen wall.
Lappie sends DHCP requests but gets no answer.
All cables are connected correctly according to lan cable tester.
So why does it not work?
Could it be that I untwisted too far when poking the wires into the crimp plug
or the flush box? How far is too far?
What else can anyone think of.
How is this linux related? Every box on the lan runs linux of course!
Yuri
