Ethernet connection Issues on Ubuntu 16.04

Question

Let me preface this by saying that I've taken a look at the other ethernet & 16.04 issues on here and believe mine to be different.

I'm having issues connecting to the internet on a new installation of Ubuntu 16.04. I have an ethernet connection running to my desktop computer and am able to establish an internet connection via a separate operating system on the same machine. The motherboard doesn't have a WiFi card.

Here's the output from ifconfig:

shloosh@Desktop:~$ ifconfig
enp2s0    
  Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr e0:3f:49:7f:db:f5  
  UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  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:1000 
  RX bytes:0 (0.0 B)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 B)

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:65536  Metric:1
  RX packets:804 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
  TX packets:804 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
  collisions:0 txqueuelen:1 
  RX bytes:61616 (61.6 KB)  TX bytes:61616 (61.6 KB)

enp2s0 is the interface name that Network Manager assigned to the ethernet connection. I find it strange that it doesn't have an inet addr assigned.

And lshw:

shloosh@Desktop:~$ lshw -C network 
  *-network               
   description: Ethernet interface
   product: RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
   vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
   physical id: 0
   bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
   logical name: enp2s0
   version: 09
   serial: e0:3f:49:7f:db:f5
   size: 10Mbit/s
   capacity: 1Gbit/s
   width: 64 bits
   clock: 33MHz
   capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
   configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=half firmware=rtl8168f-1_0.0.5 06/18/12 latency=0 link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s
   resources: irq:26 ioport:e800(size=256) memory:fbfff000-fbffffff memory:fbff8000-fbffbfff

And my /etc/network/interfaces file:

shloosh@Desktop:~$ cat /etc/network/interfaces
# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them.
# interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

And lspci:

shloosh@Desktop:/etc$ lspci -nnk | grep -e 0200 -e 0280 -A2
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [10ec:8168] (rev 09)
Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. P8 series motherboard [1043:8505]
Kernel driver in use: r8169

And finally lsmod:

shloosh@Desktop:~$ lsmod | grep r816*
r8169                  81920  0
mii                    16384  1 r8169

My routing table is empty. I'm new to Network Manager and fairly new to networking and am at a loss as to how to proceed. Any advice is appreciated.

Solution 1

You need to install the r8168-dkms using Synaptic.

Start Synaptic from the dash. Click the Reload icon. Type r8168-dkms into the searchbox. Only 1 item will be displayed in the results box, below. Mark it for Install. Click the Apply icon to install it. Reboot the computer.

Keep us posted. Cheers, Al

Solution 2

The answer provided by heynnema worked! Since I had to install the package without internet, it required grabbing the .deb file for r8168-dkms and also a few other dependencies. I figured I'd explain the process for anyone else running into this issue in the future:

1. Get on a computer with internet access. You will have to transfer the .deb files via USB or some storage medium.

2. Install the respective r8168-dkms package for your operating system. For me, the link for the download was here: http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/all/kernel/r8168-dkms/download. Select one of the mirrors to start the download.

3. Transfer the downloaded .deb to USB and then to the computer you want to install it on.

4. Run the dpkg command on the .deb file to install it:

   sudo dpkg -i r8168-dkms_8.042.00-1_all.deb
   

5. The first time you run this command, it will likely fail and list any dependencies it requires. For me, it listed the dkms package. Go out and find the .deb download for that package on the packages.ubuntu.com website. After I ran dpkg for dkms it had its own uninstalled dependency: module-init-tools. You may want to grab that as well.

6. Install all of your dependencies with the same sudo dpkg -i package.deb command and then run that command on r8168-dkms. It should run without errors.
7. Reboot your machine and enjoy your new internet connection!

Comments

[James]

Is your ethernet on? I once spent 6 hours trying to figure out why my ehternet wasn't working and I just never turned it on...

[shloosh]

Thank you so much! It worked! Can you send me a pm explaining how you figured this out?

[Boris Hamanov]

from this line product: RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller and this line Kernel driver in use: r8169 and knowing the the r8169 driver is flawed. Cheers, Al