Subject: Unexpected Disconnects

From: "brendan bowden" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 09:07:35 -0800

[Sorry if anybody's on the linux-atalk list and has already seen this, just
thought somebody here might have some ideas]

The Mac lab I'm in charge of has a really annoying problem... on a seemingly
random basis, my Macs pop up with a "Server has unexpectedly disconnected"
message. Happens on both TCP/IP and Appletalk logins, and OSes 8.5-9.0.4.

[warning: boring tech specs and stuff below]
Hardware: computers from PowerMac 5500/225's to G4's and everything in
between, mostly OS 9.0.4 but a few 8.5.x's in there; average 10-15 connected
to the server at a time. Same error message on all setups.

Server: far from being overloaded - Athlon Tbird 750, 2 3Com PCI NICs, 30gb
IDE hard drive, 128meg RAM, Slackware7.1 with
netatalk1.4.99-20001108 (but the supplied +asun2.1.3 and a pre37 compile
have the same problem). The 3com NICS seem to work great otherwise but I
tested a few junky RTL8139's and even some ISA NE2000's just to be sure - to
the same effect.

Network: The Macs are connected to 2 Cisco Catalyst 1900 10baseT switches,
linked to nothing but each other. The server has a NIC linked to this
mini-network and the other NIC plugged into the main school network (both
server ports are runing at 100mbit), ipmasq applenet->schoolnet setup and
working fine. Yeah, I could just link into schoolnet but I didn't think the
Macs wanted to see 30 million SMB broadcasts per second, and it gives me
more security/logging power for internet routing to the lab.

I thought this setup would work fine... am I missing some weird setting that
needs tweaking or what?

-- brendan

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From: Dick Visser <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 10:44:09 +0100 (CET)

> message. Happens on both TCP/IP and Appletalk logins, and OSes 8.5-9.0.4.

I've had this problem too. What's in your /va/r/log/messages?

> tested a few junky RTL8139's and even some ISA NE2000's just to be sure - to

My problem was due to a broken RTL8139: it send messages like:
	Tx Buffer Overflow
to the /v/l/msg. Right after such an overflow all the macs were
disconnected. After replacing the card by a fresh one, that box is up now
for 170 days without a single quirk.

-- 

D.N.M. Visser

    TIENHUIS
Macintosh <-> Linux
Jacob Catskade 10 hs
1052 BW Amsterdam
T (0031) 20 684 3731
M (0031) 62 269 8108
F (0031) 20 864 14 20
W http://www.tienhuis.nl
E [email-masked]

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From: "Chris G. Sellers" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 07:58:20 -0500 (EST)

Does your client, MacOS, have the TCP/IP control panel set to unload the
TCP/IP stack when not in use? (under the options button)

> for 170 days without a single quirk.

	PLEASE NOTE MY NEW FAX# : 248.370.4209

=	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	=

   Sellers , Chris G.		Scientific Programmer Analyst
    Information & Instructional Technology 
    Oakland University - Rochester, Michigan 48309-4401	
    Phone: (248) 370.2016    FAX: (248) 370.4209
    Oak Archives Co-Manager		http://oak.oakland.edu

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From: "Brendan Bowden" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 08:56:04 -0500

[replying to lots of messages at once]

The logs actually don't show anything... the server thinks the machines are
still connected, and I have to kill -9 the afpd process so it'll let go of
the files to the user can work again.

Those Cisco switches *should* be set to whatever the defaults are, but
knowing this place they're probably set to IPX QoS preference or
something... guess I'll have to find my rj45->serial adapter for the console
and check it all out. And actually, my mistake, I was a little off on the
switch type... one of those switches got replaced weeks ago by a 29xx(it's
got 22 rj45's and 2 [unused] 100meg fiber ports) so our more capable
machines could transfer at 100meg speeds. The transfer speed's around the
expected range... 800k-1meg/second on the 10base ports and 3-6megs/second on
the 100meg ports; faster with TCP/IP than Appletalk usually. Maybe this
would help - the disconnections apparently happen in 'idle' periods of the
server, not in the middle of transferring data.

Regarding the Mac TCP stack - some are set to load when active, some are set
to always load... doesn't seem to affect anything either way.

--brendan

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From: Jürgen Weltzer <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Nov 2000 16:46:06 +0100

Hi all,

I've the same problem, but only from time to time - and: not all Macs 
are disconnected, it occurs only by two Macs. One of them is 
connectet by TCP/IP the other by Apple Talk.
The log file doesn't show anything.
-- 
Viele Grüße
Jürgen Weltzer

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