[9fans] IL/NIC incompatibility

[9fans] IL/NIC incompatibility

[G.David]

The file and cpu servers do NOT timeout the ARP caches, so
if you are giving the same IP number for the different
cards, then it won't work unless you clear the ARP entries
on the cpu and file servers.

[9fans] IL/NIC incompatibility

[Charles]

> would implementing the timeout have helped?
> the usual one tends to be fairly big,
> to avoid arping when nothing changes for days,
> if not months, and you'd then have been wondering
> why things suddenly worked after 5, 10 or 20 minutes
> (if you'd had the patience).

Uh, what's supposed to happen is that a machine coming up will send a
broadcast ARP request for its own address, and all the other machines
on the network will see this and cache the address.  Provided you
don't have two machines with the same address simultaneously, this
provides instant switchover.

[9fans] IL/NIC incompatibility

[forsyth]

cached arp entries would be my guess as well.
i think it's `arp flush' to clear the cache on the file server
and `echo flush >'#a/arp/ctl' on the cpu server.

would implementing the timeout have helped?
the usual one tends to be fairly big,
to avoid arping when nothing changes for days,
if not months, and you'd then have been wondering
why things suddenly worked after 5, 10 or 20 minutes
(if you'd had the patience).
the system could watch for ip/ether mapping clashes though,
and realise something wasn't quite right.

[9fans] IL/NIC incompatibility

[Louis]

Brief description of the problem (all x86 system):
	b e!0 
	root from (local, il)[...]: il
	user[none]: xxx
	password: xxx
	arp: (authentication server)
	arp: (file server)

	eventual timeout with
		"error dialing (file server)!17008" message 

Replacing the NE2000 clone with a 3C509B-TPO from a
working terminal fixes the problem.

A brand new 3C509B-TPC in the same machine fails as above.

In other testing, it has been observed that UDP and TPC may
work fine with a particular NIC while IL fails.

Has anyone else observed this behavior and is willing to explain
what is happening? Any and all hints, tips and conjectures are
welcome at this point. Thanks!

louis