# network interface stops responding

## funsize

I tried searching the forums, I really did, but...

Every couple of days my gentoo box stops responding on my home LAN.  It doesn't crash, the box is still up, it just won't talk.

Logging on locally when this happens, ifconfig shows the eth0 interface up and OK, but pings fail completely (unless directed to lo interface (127.0.0.1)

If I do: ifconfig eth0 down followed by ifconfig eth0 up then the interface works fine (until the next time...).

This issue started a while back but was not happening for the first few months that I had this system running.  I have not performed any kernel upgrades since about 2 days after I installed the system...kernel is 2.4.19-gentoo-r9.  I am not running X on the system.

Anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this?  It's not a huge deal 'cause I know how to fix the symptoms, but what is the cause?  and the cure?

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## pjp

Are you using anything that requires a gentoo-sources kernel?  If not, I'd switch to a vanilla kernel.

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## krt

 *funsize wrote:*   

> I tried searching the forums, I really did, but...
> 
> Every couple of days my gentoo box stops responding on my home LAN.  It doesn't crash, the box is still up, it just won't talk.
> 
> Anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this?  It's not a huge deal 'cause I know how to fix the symptoms, but what is the cause?  and the cure?

 

does your system log and/or dmesg show anything odd?  Like an error message from your nic's driver?  There are some drivers that do that... other than that, is it in a DHCP environment?  Maybe you have a lease expiration/lease handout issue with another computer on the local network..

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## Namor

What type of NIC is it? Maybe there is an issue with the driver?

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## funsize

lessee...the NIC is a Netgear FA310TX (tulip driver)

I have never had any problems with these on Linux (or any other OS)

I have had problems with the FA311, but it uses the natsemi driver...this is usually what people have when you hear them complain about NetGear cards

The IP is static, no DHCP anywhere.

If this were a kernel or driver issue I would have expected it to have occurred since the machine was built...it has only started in the last couple of weeks

hmmm...dmesg shows the following:

(repeated about a million times (or at least enough to fill the buffer))

```
NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
```

similarly, in /var/log/everything:

```
Jan 22 14:36:39 [kernel] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out

```

hmmm...is there a way to check the media type the driver is trying to use?

e.g. full-half-duplex?  100BaseT or 10BaseT?

I'm searching now...

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## funsize

rereading my post, I'm not sure I was clear...

I know you can use ifconfig eth0 media type to SET the media type, but is there a way to see what media type is IN USE?

/etc/conf.d/net indicates that the driver is using the default media type, where can I find out what the default is for this driver?

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## funsize

Output from ifconfig

```
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 02:00:07:E3:30:DC

          inet addr:192.168.1.13  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0

          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1

          RX packets:3580984 errors:94190 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:4

          TX packets:1145681 errors:94245 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:2

          collisions:141786 txqueuelen:100

          RX bytes:430753033 (410.7 Mb)  TX bytes:133423573 (127.2 Mb)

          Interrupt:10 Base address:0xd800

```

note many errors, both RX and TX

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## kyptin

Wow.  Sounds like you have problems!  I would try moving the ethernet card to a different PCI slot.  Also, do you have a friend who has an ethernet card you could borrow?  It seems like your card or your PCI slot might be going out.  Getting that many errors can't be good....

Let me check...I have received ~1,000,000 packets since last reboot, and none of them have been errors.  None of my ~600,000 sent packets have been errors either.

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## delta407

 *funsize wrote:*   

> I know you can use ifconfig eth0 media type to SET the media type, but is there a way to see what media type is IN USE?

 

```
# emerge ethtool

# ethtool eth0
```

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## funsize

okay gang,

ethtool didn't work out for me, doesn't give any help...

but I did find this in my lernel logs:

```
Feb 13 16:25:37 [kernel] NETDEV WATCHDOG: eth0: transmit timed out
```

this shows up A LOT

checking google I found some mails on the kernel mailing list archive:

http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0103.0/0185.html

 *Quote:*   

> My guess would be that the driver has decided there's no
> 
> link beat on the 10baseT interface and has flopped over
> 
> to using 10base2

 

this was for a different NIC, but I found this list of options to pass to my driver (tulip) here:

http://www.scyld.com/network/tulip.html

I will try some various settings...

now that I think about it, this didn't start happening until I swapped out my ailing 10/100 switch for an old 10Base-T hub, so it may be that the tulip driver doesn't handle auto-detection as well as I would like...

or maybe the hub is defective...

ah, well....I should have thought of that earlier.

C'est la vie!    :Embarassed: 

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## gojuka

Try this:

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?p=254190#254190

Mark

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## funsize

actually, I guess I should have posted this earlier...

my problem resolved itself following a  power outage I had some time back.  Apparently my hub (mentioned above) has a "quirk" where it causes this sort of timeout every so often.  Restarting the hub (due to the power outage) seems to have resolved it.

<shrug>

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