I have ferdora 6 zod, I'm a newbie... I have a server that has fedora 6 and kernel 2.6.22.9-61.fcb on a i686; whatever that means? anyway it was used as a email server and webhosting site. when I boot it up all I get is a black screen asking me to login. when I login the black screen (terminal window) just sits there looking back at me wait for me to make it do something? I don't know what it wants... all I know is that I don't get email anymore, nor can I see my back office when I go to my website. What should I do next? I cant even tell if I'm on the internet.

Use the ping command to see if you can reach a server, e.g. "ping -c 4 www.google.com". If it says "Unknown host" you're not connected.

I have fedora 6 (zod) and it not connecting to the internet its plugged into the router all the other computers have connectivity except this one?

Check the network cable, check the network interface card, check the network drivers, check the interface configuration.

That should print some information about the network interfaces; if you wonder about the names, eth0 should be an ethernet card, and if there are more, they should be eth1, eth2 etc. If there is an IP address assigned to the interface, it's a positive sign. If not, you need to configure it, either manually or by running a dhcp client if you're using DHCP server in the network.

That should tell you if you are on the net (there is a working connection, if you get replies from some machine on the internet; you can use local area network machines too to test connections inside your LAN). IP addresses work too if you prefer them over "written" addresses. Press CTRL+C to stop it if it seems to continue forever.

To configure an interface if there is a DHCP server working in your network, try either of these (which one is for you depends on which dhcp client program is installed; it should not matter):
Of course you need to be logged in as root or otherwise use root privileges to run the command, because it has "system-wide effects".

Or if you want to configure the interface manually, you can do something like this:
though if there is a configuration utility for your network interfaces, it might be easier to use it. Try typing
and press TAB twice or so, and hopefully you'll get some lines on the screen that show which executables (commands) start with system-. What you are looking for is something close to "system-config-network"; see if you get anything that sounds like it. When you do, launch it like this:
If you happen to have that kind of program (or just script) there, run it and it should help you out with your connection.

Then, when the connection works..well, see if the mail server or whatever you need works. If not, it might be a good idea to restart the service. And maybe before it read the appropriate logfiles to see what's wrong.