arm@sps.com (Annette Myjak) (06/06/91)
We are having some bizarre networking problems with our Interactive 386/ix systems and are at a complete loss as to where to begin to isolate the causes. Background: we have a heterogenous network running over thin wire ethernet which consists of 7 suns (Sun OS4.1), 3 386s (ISC 2.2) and 1 data general (System V something or other). the suns and the data general have no trouble seeing and/or talking to each other. Problem 1: when the 386's are first booted, they can ping the other machines and packet loss is in the 0-15% range. over several minutes however, packet loss rapidly approaces 100%, and then the 386's can't see/talk to ANY of the other machines. if we manage to get logged into another machine before 'losing' the connection, response time is VERY slow. rebooting the 386's temporarily restores the ability to ping other machines, but we again rapidly reach the 100% packet loss problem. The weird part: we experinced this problem several months ago after the addition of a second 386 to the net. moving a user's home directory from one sun to another seemed to clear it up (why? beats me! shouldn't have made a difference.) things have run pretty smoothly for a couple of months until the addition of the third 386 to the net last week. now this problem has cropped up again. Problem 2: the 386's have difficulty seeing/talking to the other machines CLOSEST to them in the network configuration. If any one out there in net land has had similiar problems, or can provide some pointers as to where to look to isolate the causes of this nonsense, we'd appreciate hearing from you. Please e-mail responses to arm@sps.com. (i've been out of the office for a week, and am WAY behind reading news.) if there's enough interest, i'll post a summary of any responses i get. thanks! annette myjak arm@sps.com