glee@athena.mit.edu (Gilbert Huppert) (04/25/91)
We recently started having a problem with our local network, and the only logical explanation is that something is going wrong with either our M/120, RS2030, or RC2030. The symptoms we are showing is a random complete shutdown of the local network. We thought at first that this is a hardware problem, ie. wiring somewhere, but all the suspect cabling has been changed and the problem persists. The only thing which was recently changed was an upgrade to OS4.51 on the RX2030's and to OS4.52 on the M/120. The problem is easily worked around: we just unterminate the network for about 5 seconds, and the problem goes away. Just a few things about our network. We have the 2 RX2030's, a M/120, and about a dozen PC's running PCNFS, using the M/120 as a file server. The M/120 also acts as a bridge between the local network and internet, physically separating the local network. This is possible since we purchased a second ethernet board from MIPS along with the controlling software. Nothing seriously strange occurred during the last update, besides the fact that I had to remake the kernel since the interface tc0 (the auxillary ethernet) was not defined in the standard release. The local network is on the la0 controller, so we don't believe that the problem is with controlling the tc0 interface. Any advice/help/suggestion is greatly appreciated. (By the way, the M/120 is under a full service contract, so if there is something wrong with it, or it is best to replace a part, that's the way we'll go) Thanks -- Gilbert Lee Huppert (glee@athena.mit.edu) Materials Etching Technology Laboratory