10.3.3 and Ibooks

[knowmad]

Hello all,
Not certain if this belongs here or in networking but I trust the moderators to fix an error in this regard.
I have a client with two ibooks, no special software except virex (not my suggestion, they did that on their own).
Both machines were running fine (12 inch version for the record) and then this past friday they ran updte and installed 10.3.3 combined update taking them from 10.3.2 to 10.3.3
this should have been no problem but both machines resulted n the same exact problem,t he internal ethernet stopped working as did safari. The internal ethernet would show up as fine in all hardware tests I could devise, and access to the internet could be gained via airport and IE. The ethernet would not show up in network status in the network prefs pane. I caledapple and they said it could not be hardware and would I please do an archive and install using 10.3.0 disks. OK I said, no prob, and I did the archive and install keeping user and network settings. I figured keeping the network settings was a bad idea but they insisted i try that first and low and behold it worked. upon reboot the network card showed up and got an IP address (forgottt to mention, it was not even getting a self assigned IP before) and worked fine though safari had to be replaced to get it working. Ok I though, not having made the connection yet, the system is now fine, it was just a fluke, lets run updates and move on. Updates ran without a problem but wheni rebooted no ethernet. call apple, they claim never to have heard of this before. Archive/install again and I get the ethernet back.
Any ideas on what the 10.3.3 upgrade is doing to kill the ethernet connection? Has anyone else seen this before?
Just for the re3cord casue I lik to cover all bases (even though i don't play baseball) before calling apple, I created a new user and the issue was still there, I dumped every pref and plist I could think of that had ANYTHING to do with networks, I ran disk permissions, disk warrior, techtool pro, techtool deluxe, and for good measure fsck.
othing but re-install worked.
Knowmad

[hayne]

1) The network preferences are in the folder /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/ since they are shared by all users.

2) You should look at the system logs via the "Console" application (under /Applications/Utilities) to see if there are any relevant error messages upon restart.

3) It seems likely that there is something that is unusual about these iBooks that is causing the problem since so few others have reported an issue. Are there any peripherals attached to these iBooks?

[knowmad]

hmmm, yeah i would agree it has to be these machiens but there is NOTHING special about them, they are as ordinary as possable. They have each a copy of MS Office, and thats the ONLY added software (oh yeah and the antivirus software that i mentioned) nothing else. On a regular basis the users use mail and terminal.
they each have an HP printer, USB connection. no other periphrals.
i removed the shared network prefs, did no good.
Oh well, i keep looking.
knowmad

[ilcaffedio]

I have this same problem.

iBook: 600mhz, w/ airport, 10.3.3

From your post that you ran fix file permissions, I assumed that this was a broblem relating to file permissions of the device file. However I can find no device file for the built in ehternet in "/dev". I am a long time linux geek (gentoo fanatic), though OSX/BSD is still new to me. Where can I find devices?

From system.log I find that the built in ethernet is UniNEnet. This nor *ethernet*, en0, etc..., does not show up in kextstat, however "com.apple.driver.AppleAirPort" and "com.apple.driver.InternalUSBmodem", are loaded.

A sudo find / -name com.apple.driver.* returns nothing because of read permissions. How do I su to root (default password)?

[hayne]

I assumed that this was a broblem relating to file permissions of the device file. However I can find no device file for the built in ehternet in "/dev". I am a long time linux geek (gentoo fanatic), though OSX/BSD is still new to me. Where can I find devices? Devices are in /dev as usual, but I don't know if there is a device representing Ethernet.

From system.log I find that the built in ethernet is UniNEnet. This nor *ethernet*, en0, etc..., does not show up in kextstat, however "com.apple.driver.AppleAirPort" and "com.apple.driver.InternalUSBmodem", are loaded.

On my 10.3.3 system (iBook 600, fall 2001):
cd /System/Library/Extensions
ls -ld *ther*
gave:
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 24 Sep 2003 AppleRTL8139Ethernet.kext

A sudo find / -name com.apple.driver.* returns nothing because of read permissions.I suspect that the real problem was that you neglected to quote the * so it got expanded by the shell. You should not have any permissions issues when using 'sudo' as your command runs with 'root' privileges.

How do I su to root (default password)?
I'm not sure I understand the question. You don't usually need to use 'su' since 'sudo' gives you full privileges. But if you need it, 'sudo -s' will give youu a shell with 'root' privileges.