Ethernet not working on Raspbian

Question

I just downloaded a fresh Raspbian image and I can't get the ethernet to work with it. The strange thing is that it works without problem on my OpenElec SD card.

I tried many things with the /etc/network/interfaces file and I even tried to plug a wifi usb dongle without success.

iwconfig:

lo    no wireless extensions
eth0  no wireless extension

ifconfig eth0:

eth0    Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
        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)

with the /etc/network/interfaces :

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

I tried to switch the ethernet cable without success (even if both work with OpenElec).

It starts to turn me crazy and I think I will try with an Arch or a Pidora soon if I don't find a solution. But I'm more confortable with debian so that makes me a little bit sad :(

EDIT: Okay, network stopped working on my OpenElec install too. So I got a little angry, threw the Pi on the sofa and the network LEDs started blinking again. Everything works now. Conclusion of the story : if you don't understand why things don't work, try to break them, that'll fix them.

Answer 1

I had this same problem some time ago.

Try:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface eth0 inet static
address 10.10.10.181 # Replace with your address
netmask 255.255.255.0 # Replace with your netmask
network 10.10.10.0 # Not really needed... If you want, set your network address
gateway 10.10.10.1 # Your gateway
dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8

iface default inet dhcp

That is my actual configuration.

If that works, it is likely that your Pi doesn't find a valid DHCP server in the network he is connected to.

Let me know if that helped :)