From owner-freebsd-isp Thu Nov 14 10:40:46 1996 Return-Path: owner-isp Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id KAA24876 for isp-outgoing; Thu, 14 Nov 1996 10:40:46 -0800 (PST) Received: from buffnet4.buffnet.net (root@buffnet4.buffnet.net [205.246.19.13]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id KAA24867 for ; Thu, 14 Nov 1996 10:40:31 -0800 (PST) Received: from buffnet1.buffnet.net (mmdf@buffnet1.buffnet.net [205.246.19.10]) by buffnet4.buffnet.net (8.6.12/8.6.9) with SMTP id NAA18775 for ; Thu, 14 Nov 1996 13:38:44 GMT Received: from buffnet11.buffnet.net by buffnet1.buffnet.net id aa10592; 14 Nov 96 13:41 EST Date: Thu, 14 Nov 1996 13:41:34 -0500 (EST) From: Steve To: Jim Shankland cc: richardc@csua.berkeley.edu, isp@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Decision in Router Purchase In-Reply-To: <199611141820.KAA17779@saguaro.flyingfox.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 14 Nov 1996, Jim Shankland wrote: > Steve writes: > > > Go with the cisco! There is something just a bit off with > > freebsd's tcp/ip. I have a subgroup of users who get stalls, > I find this annoying. I'm sure you were having problems, and that > interposing a Cisco between your users and your FreeBSD servers > made the problem go away; but realize that "something [being] > just a bit off with FreeBSD's tcp/ip" is not the only, nor indeed > the most likely, explanation of the things you observed. > > Did you make any effort to investigate the problem (e.g., packet > traces)? Did you report the problem? Or did you just try > something (interposing the Cisco) and find that the problem went > away? If so, fair enough; everybody's busy. But then you can't > draw conclusions about what was wrong in the first place. > I dont know the underlying low level of tcp/ip enough to run a packet trace and interpret results. I did report this on freebsd lists and the usenet news group. All I got was "BSD is the standard - you must be crasy". I could come to no other resolution than to put them on the other side of a router. The problem did not exist with all 'dialers in' - just a subset, but a subset with no connecting features other than that they used PPP. I dont experience the problem with linux boxes or the SCO's (I have both) - Just the freebsd's later than version 2.0 (it was not until 2.0.5 that the problem arose) with or without the extensions enabled. I know that to get it fixed I would have to become a low level freebsd tcp/ip expert, find and fix it myself at the source level. I dont have the time for that. So it might annoy you, but I found it very annoying to spend a week trouble shooting 3 web servers, and another week trouble shooting an identicle problem with a news server, only because I had switched to freebsd on them - and then could only resolve it by putting them the other side of a cisco - because Im crasy and BSD is perfect.