Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 09:37:01 +0300 From: Roman Jasin <cityangels@mac.com> To: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: connection drops after some time Message-ID: <79E5DCB8-7785-11D6-8349-00039345B18A@mac.com> In-Reply-To: <3CFBD313.7060902@potentialtech.com>
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Bill, I'm sure there are enough people all over the world who don't care, but there are enough who do care. :) Thank you for you suggestion, I'll try to educate my ISP on the matter. Regarding my setup: I have a RadioDSL link (BreezeAccess antenna + tiny box). I have couple of 4.5-STABLE FreeBSD boxes, one with firewall+nat and two Allied Telesyn AT2500TX cards. After I tried all I could think of with it, I switched the box. Second box I tried had one 3Com 3C509 Etherlink III. The rest of the setup was the same, Apache 1.3.24+PHP 4.2.1+sendmail+qpopper. I also used a little 4 port hub for the internal network with the firewall box, but I don't think it matters, because I got the same results w/o firewall+nat. I'm not sure if I mentioned that before, but I found that when my box is inaccessible, it doesn't 'see' MAC address for ISP's router (gateway). As soon as I send a request (ping, http etc.) it's able to 'see' the address again. I'm not sure what other information could be relavant here. Thanks for your help, -Roman On Monday, June 3, 2002, at 11:35 PM, Bill Moran wrote: > Roman Jasin wrote: >> Thanks Chris, >> I guess that's what I'll have to do. You wouldn't believe how >> incompetent some ISPs can be here (Latvia). I probably spend hours on >> the phone trying to get them to check whether they have a timeout >> setup. > > I feel your pain. I've worked for some people like this, and > occasionally, > I've just fixed the problem when the boss' back was turned, despite the > fact that he had specifically told me not to. :( > Hopefully, the suggestion I give below will help you fix things. > As far as the ISPs in Latvia being incompetent, I'm sorry, but there are > some in the US who are just as bad (if not worse). > >> On Monday, June 3, 2002, at 09:34 PM, Chris Fedde wrote: >>> On Mon, 3 Jun 2002 20:06:39 +0300 Roman Jasin wrote: >>> +------------------ >>> | I guess the problem is my ISP, but I'm not sure about that. Plus >>> those >>> | guys aren' t very helpful, so I'm hoping to fix it w/o them. It >>> proved to >>> | be the fastest path in the past. >>> | >>> | Here is what happening with my FreeBSD 4.5-STABLE box, running >>> Apache, >>> | sshd, and sendmail. It becomes inaccessible from outside world >>> after >>> | less than an hour if I'm not doing something on it. As soon as I >>> access >>> | something from it, whether via http or simple ping, it comes back >>> | online and you can see it from the outside. It looks like it >>> forgets >>> | ISP's default router address. APM is not an issue simply because >>> it's >>> | disabled. I tried everything, even replacing the NIC and the box >>> itself. >>> | I'm on RadioDSL with BreezeAccess antenna, and like I said I don't >>> have >>> | problems with the accessing Internet. The problem is that the >>> outside >>> | world can't 'see' my server if I don't access the Internet from it >>> for a >>> | while. >>> | Hope it makes sense. >>> | >>> | Any help is very appreciated, >>> +------------------ > > I worked for an ISP for a while that had the same problem with his > servers. > It turned out that the recycled old switching hub that he was using had > an > option to protect the network from broadcast storms and other broadcast > traffic attacks. Unfortunately, the method it used was to calculate the > percentage of traffic that was broadcast, and when that percentage got > too > high, temporarily disconnect the machines receiving the broadcasts from > the > network. This resulted in the machines being disconnected during slow > times > when the only network traffic was Windows NetBIOS broadcasts. Luckily, > the > hub had an option to turn this "feature" off. > You didn't specify your network and other hadware setup. This may be > something > on your end, or it may be the ISPs hardware. If the latter, you may > have > trouble getting it handled if the ISP is as tough to work with as you > claim. > >>> An obvious work around is to put something that tickles the net into >>> crontab: >>> >>> */20 * * * * ping -c 3 www.myisp.com > /dev/null 2>&1 >>> >>> But that does not address the "real" problem. I suspect that it is a >>> policy issue on the ISP or layer2 provider that is timing out your DSL >>> virtual circuit. > > We used this solution for some time. It seemed like an unholy hack of a > half-a$$ed solution, but it worked. > > -- Bill Moran > Potential Technology > http://www.potentialtech.com > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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