Subject: Strange network behaviour
To: #List NetBSD current users <current-users@NetBSD.ORG>
From: Paul Goyette <paul@whooppee.com>
List: current-users
Date: 07/09/1999 20:04:39
(This is on i386, NetBSD 1.4D from 7/3)

I'm getting some very strange network stuff happening...

Every now and then, incoming connections seem to end up in nver-never
land.  For example, attempts to connect to sendmail/smtp never get an
answer (tcpdump shows the incoming packet, but nothing outgoing).  Yet
connections to httpd (Apache) succeed.  And outbound connections seem to
work just fine, too.

And, I don't know why, but most of the time when /etc/rc starts up
xntpd, it ends up creating two processes!  One is listening on the
proper sockets, but never does anything useful, and ntpq just times out
when attempting to connect to the demon!

This is happening on _both_ of my i386 boxes, and both have 3c905b
Ethernet interfaces (ex0).  Both these boxes, plus an Alpha and a Mac
(also running NetBSD 1.4D and 1.4C respectively) are connected to a hub
which also has my internet uplink.

Funny thing is, even when I cannot ssh into the i386 boxes from the
outside world, I can usually ssh in to the Mac or the Alpha and then
connect to the Intel boxes!

I've checked routing and arp tables, and everything looks good.  So,
does anyone have any idea what's going on?

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| Paul Goyette      | PGP DSS Key fingerprint:   | E-mail addresses:     |
| Network Engineer  |   BCD7 5301 9513 58A6 0DBC |  paul@whooppee.com    |
| and kernel hacker |   91EB ADB1 A280 3B79 9221 |  pgoyette@juniper.net |
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