Gentoo Box Drops Off Network (Long)
Steven Elling
ellings at kcnet.com
Thu May 1 07:28:37 CDT 2003
Hey all,
My server at home runs Gentoo and for some reason it keeps dropping off the
network. I cannot ping it from anywhere on the network and the server
cannot ping anything. I've tried everything I can think of but the problem
eludes me.
Here is what I have tried so far:
* Replaced the patch cable twice.
* Moved the patch cable to different ports on the switch.
* Put in another Linksys network card that I know is good.
* Compiled the kernel using the vanilla-sources version 2.4.20.
Every time the box drops off the network I run 'netstat -i' and every time
it shows RX-ERR and RX-OVR in the hundreds. This in itself makes me think
there is a problem somewhere in the network subsystem, but where? Are
there any kernel / module parameters I can use to further trouble-shoot? I
can't find any. I've done everything but try a different brand of network
card.
I wouldn't think a memory problem would cause it to drop off the network.
Plus, I don't believe I have a memory problem because I would see other
problems manifest themselves. For one, I compile with '-O3' and if there
were memory problems the compiles would bomb out with 'Seg 11' at least
once. Regardless, I think I am going to run memtest overnight to see what
it comes up with.
What is interesting is the network problem started imediately after I
replaced the OS on the machine from Debian to Gentoo. The way I did this
was I installed a spare drive in my workstation; which uses the same
processor and motherboard; mounted the drive, unpacked stage1 onto the
drive, chrooted into the root of the drive, then proceeded to build Gentoo.
Once the build was complete and I had all the necessary software installed,
I swapped out the drive in the server that had Debian on it with the Gentoo
drive and proceeded to complete the install. I did a readonly badblocks
scan on the Gentoo drive and it didn't turn up anything. The server never
once dropped off the network in the 2+ years that Debian was installed on
it.
So after reading everything above, can anyone make any suggestions as to
were I shoud start next on tracking down the server's network problem?
Thanks.
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