Re: pesky network connectivity on Dell PowerEdge 1850

[Orville Canter <ocanter@richp.com>]

I tried one more thing since I posted this. I installed an old 3com NIC, 
the system recognized it and loaded the 3c59x module. I get the same 
behavior, though--services (SSH and HTTP) start up OK, then after a little 
while, stop responding. The NIC is pingable during these outages, but I 
cannot open a socket to either service from a host connected to the same 
switch. I can open a socket to both from the localhost, either to eth0's 
address, or to 127.0.0.1, and sometimes (though not always) I can open a 
socket from another client which is connecting over the internet. Services 
usually become available again after 1-30 minutes.

Any ideas?


Thanks,
Orville






On Tue, 4 Oct 2005, Orville Canter wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I am running Debian 3.1 (Linux kernel 2.4.27-2-686-smp) on a Dell PowerEdge 
> 1850 with two Xeon processors and two onboard Intel PRO/1000 network 
> interfaces. I am experiencing a very pesky problem wherein I periodically 
> lose connectivity to network services on that host.
>
> Currently I am just serving SSH and HTTP, and sometimes, after half an hour 
> or so, I am suddenly unable to GET a document over HTTP or connect by SSH. 
> Sometimes services are unavailable for only a minute, and sometimes five 
> minutes, and sometimes several hours. There is nothing in the logs indicating 
> that the NIC went down and back up during this time, and sometimes the 
> interface is pingable (though not always). Sometimes I can connect from one 
> host but not another (but not always). It doesn't appear to be trying to 
> renegotiate the speed and duplex--at least there are no up/down messages in 
> /var/log/messages.
>
> I have tried several different network cables, both onboard NIC's, and two 
> different switches. I recompiled the driver from Intel's source 
> (http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df-external/confirm.aspx?ftpDown=ftp://aiedownload.intel.com/df-support/9180/eng/e1000-6.1.16.tar.gz&agr=N&ProductID=983&DwnldId=9180&strOSs=All&OSFullName=All%20Operating%20Systems&lang=eng) 
> I am testing from two computers: a Solaris computer attached to the same 
> switch and a remote FreeBSD machine connecting via the internet.
>
>
> I am running this kernel:
>
> Linux rescomp3 2.4.27-2-686-smp #1 SMP Mon May 16 16:55:31 JST 2005 i686 
> GNU/Linux
>
> I installed it from this package:
>
> kernel-image-2.4.27-2-686-smp
>
> Which I downloaded from via apt-get from:
>
> deb http://mirrors.kernel.org/debian/ stable main
>
> Syn cookies are enabled in the kernel but not in use:
>
> % cat /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_syncookies
> 0
>
> Any ideas or suggestions would be much appreciated.
>
>
> Thanks,
> Orville
>
>
>
> "I'm not exactly a hostage to traditional journalistic ethics, but I didn't 
> understand how something made up could be 'just as true' [as something that 
> is true]".
>
> Phil Greenspun, "The Book Behind the Book"
> http://philip.greenspun.com/wtr/dead-trees/story