This probably mostly applies to installing Gentoo remotely via ssh, where someone at the physical machine boots the LiveCD and sets up networking and starts sshd. In my case, the problem happened twice on two different installs in two different datacenters. I followed the handbook to the letter, except I knew enough that I had to emerge sshd and add it to the default runlevel. But each time on the two different installs when I asked them to remove the LiveCD and reboot the machine, I was not then able to connect. Why? No default gateway was added. I don't need a default gateway at home. It didn't occur to me that one would be needed in a datacenter. And the biggest thing is there is no information that I could see in the handbook that shows you how to determine what your gateway is. The only information I was given by the server company was the IP address. But I was able, through reading the handbook, to determine I could get the broadcast and netmask by running ifconfig. But it doesn't tell you how to find your gateway. I have learned afterwards that the gateway address can be obtained by running netstat -drn though, if one has never used this command before, it might need a little explanation as to which gateway listed was the correct one. So I'm just asking that info on how to determine your gateway be added to the handbook. It happened to me twice on two otherwise flawless installs. Surely I can't be the only one. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. Follow all the instructions in the handbook. 2. Ask the data center to reboot the machine. 3. Wind up unable to connect to an otherwise perfectly running server. Actual Results: No connection. I had to wait for the data center to figure out what was wrong. Expected Results: Be able to connect after reboot.
the datacenters should tell you what your gateway is you probably dont have to do it at home because most of the time, dhcp servers will provide that information to a dhcp client
