On Mon, Oct 03, 2005 at 06:46:25AM +0930, Berndt Josef Wulf wrote:
> On Sun, 2 Oct 2005 23:57, Nick Hudson wrote:
> > On Sunday 02 October 2005 12:49, Berndt Josef Wulf wrote:
> > > G'day,
> > >
> > > My laptop has a iwi device which is extensively used at home. It uses
> > > dhcp to acquire its IP address and other network related information from
> > > a local server. The problem with this device is that it stops working for
> > > no apparent reason.  It also seems to be having a smaller range when
> > > compared with its operation under XP. Since it works under Windows it may
> > > be assumed that there is no hardware problem. Has anyone come across this
> > > and found a fix? It's a rather annoying fault as it requires me to reboot
> > > the system for it to come up again.
> > >
> > > Sysinfo: Dell Inspiron 9300, NetBSD-3.99.8
> >
> > Update - I've committed a few fixes recently. Let me know how you get on.
> >
> > Nick
> 
> This didn't fix. It's still loosing the connection. It appears to coincide 
> with the renewal of the IP address lease.

This is a bug in both iwi *and* in dhclient, one which has been fixed in
many other network interface drivers.

Dhclient should not ifconfig the interface up and down -- or, in fact,
touch it with ifconfig *at all* -- if the IP address remains the same
on renewal of the DHCP lease.

Network interface drivers, on the other hand, have no business whatsoever
resetting the interface -- which presumably causes the loss of your
authentication keys, and other interface state -- when all that is done
to them is an address change ioctl.

-- 
 Thor Lancelot Simon	                                      tls@rek.tjls.com

"The inconsistency is startling, though admittedly, if consistency is to be
 abandoned or transcended, there is no problem."		- Noam Chomsky