Gentoo Box Drops Off Network (Long)

[Steven Elling]

On Thursday 01 May 2003 08:46, Jacob Hurley wrote:
> When you say it 'drops off the network' does that mean that for
> a period of time that it is 'on' the network?  Has it worked properly at
> one time?  Is your nic recognized?

What happens is I boot the server and it works fine for a couple of days 
then it drops off the network.

> What does this output show you:
>
> # ifconfig -a

ifconfig shows the ethernet interface in question (the only one in the 
system) is up and has its assigned static IP address bound to it.  When the 
system is first booted, ifconfig shows the TX and RX errors and overruns at 
zero.  Looking at ifconfig now with an uptime of 10 hours shows RX errors 
and overruns both at 338 and TX still at zero.

> If you see the nic in there (eth0) then my next step would be to verify
> the ip address and subnet given to it, after that I would let my good
> buddy tcpdump help out from there.
>
> # tcpdump -ni eth0
>
> watch to see if it picks up any traffic on the network.

The IP address and subnet are correct.  If they weren't, I would of seen 
problems a long time ago because several services are running on the box, 
including NFS and NIS.  And yes, my routing table is correct.

I'll see what tcpdump turns up next time the system drops off the network.  
Luckily, I haven't had major network problems in the past 6+ years of using 
Linux.  Unfortunately, this means I haven't learned how to use tcpdump and 
interpret its output.