We have a small testbed of NetBSD/sparc machines running
1.2. One of those machines has had some recent difficulties,
and I'd like to ask for advice on what to check next time
this happens.

Essentially, this computer will appear to be deaf to another
computer on the network. There appears to be no particular
rhyme or reason as to which computer it chooses to ignore;
one was a SunOS4 machine, another Solaris. When I run
"arp <host>" on the NetBSD computer, it has no entry for
the computer to which it refuses to speak.

I can see, via snoop on a 3rd computer, and tcpdump on
the NetBSD machine, that all IP/ethernet addresses are
correct. The computers are on the same subnet, so there
is no routing involved.

Both times a reboot of the NetBSD computer has "solved"
the problem.

I doubt that's enough information to pin down the cause
of the problem, so I'd like to find out what else I can
look for next time this happens.

Thanks.

-- 
John R. Daily
jdaily@bbn.com