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Please help me!! I'm so frustrated. I know I have been a bit absent from techtalk lately but I've been super ultra busy ... one of my latest endeavors is working with Linux.

I have a Red Hat 7.3 system set up right now which works perfectly except for one thing (which just started happening out of no where, don't know how or why).

Everytime I go into XWindows and try to run "neat" (a graphical proggie for configuring a network), the window appears, freezes, and takes down all of linux networking with it! The same exact thing happens when I run redhat-config-network (which appears to be the same program?)

Any advice would be ultra helpful!
Thanx

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Dani AI

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Useful diagnostic checklist and safe steps to narrow this down (based on ’s posts and the reformat comment): the symptom — a GUI network tool freezing X and then leaving the box unresponsive — usually points to one of three root areas: package/library corruption, kernel/driver interaction (network driver or module), or underlying disk/RAM faults. Reformatting can hide the cause temporarily, but it doesn’t diagnose it.

First, gather immediate evidence before re-installing anything. Run the network config tool from an xterm so you can capture stderr and (if possible) trace its syscalls. Example commands to run from a terminal inside X:

strace -f -o /tmp/neat.strace redhat-config-network
ldd $(which redhat-config-network)
rpm -V redhat-config-network
rpm --rebuilddb
dmesg | tail -n 80
tail -n 200 /var/log/messages

If ldd shows “not found” or rpm -V reports altered files, that indicates mismatched libraries or corrupted package files. If running the tool reproduces the crash and you see kernel messages or OOPS entries in dmesg or /var/log/messages, that strongly suggests a driver/kernel problem (often exposed when the tool calls system scripts that touch interfaces). Since you mentioned this started after up2date, check uname -r vs installed kernel packages and ensure kernel and modules are a consistent set.

Also rule out hardware/filesystem problems: run fsck from a rescue boot, run a memtest86 pass, and inspect disks for I/O errors (SMART). If the crash only happens under your normal root filesystem, try reproducing from a clean rescue/live CD environment or another kernel — that isolates whether it’s the installed userland or the running kernel/drivers.

If logs or strace show useful errors, paste the relevant snippets (kernel oops, failing open() calls, “not found” library lines). That will point to whether to reinstall specific packages, roll back the kernel, or replace faulty hardware. This approach avoids repeated reformats and targets the real cause.

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Member Avatar for Dani

I just looked it up ...

redhat-network-config = NEtwork Admin Tool for RedHat Linux

My problem now is figuring out whether my network config files are screwed up and this NEAT program is having a problem reading/interpreting them ... or whether the NEAT program is corrupted itself, etc ...

Any ideas? I can't see what's going on in the background when I run NEAT b/c the sec I do, it freezes on me.

Member Avatar for Dani

I've narrowed it down to this ...

NEAT is installed as an RPM. When I verify the package files, there are 60 discrepencies/errors. I uninstall the package, I reinstall the package. All is now good.

The sec I run the program though, it crashes! And then I go and verify the files again, and those 60 errors come back.

Also... once I get this problem, the only way to get out is to hard reboot. The system becomes unresponsive ... not even Ctrl+Alt+Del works!

Member Avatar for Dani

Problem solved! => I reformatted (heh, it's my answer to everything)

Member Avatar for aeinstein

LOL! well i've heard it said many times, if you ever want to have an intelligent conversation, talk to yourself! :D glad to see that you get that all cleared up!

Member Avatar for Dani

hehe thanx aeinstein ...
yup, talking to myself looks like the best way to go!
(although reformatting really sucks ... it was actually over this "neat" thing that I reformatted and unfortunately got VMWare's network to stop working)

Member Avatar for samaru

Looks like NEAT turned out to be a MESS. :)

Member Avatar for Dani

Goodness gracious! Now I was able to get VMWare to work the right way (the networking works) but I started having this NEAT problem over again! I assume it's a problem with VMWare and Redhat's network configuration? Argh. Anyone with any ideas?

Member Avatar for Dani

Nope ........ that's not it. Having this problem without VMWare even installed !! Must be something else causing it ... it started happening right after I ran up2date (RedHat's .rpm upgrade utility to upgrade already installed packages to newer versions)

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