[SOLVED] Random network connection loss on Debian server

-Tyler- · 05-15-2011, 05:38 PM

Hello and thanks for reading. I have been having this problem for about two weeks now where Debian's network and internet connection randomly fails. It works perfectly fine and hosts all the services I need for a while, and then without warning all network connectivity fails. I can't ping any other network device. Regardless of how much I try to fix it, the only thing that works is restarting the computer. First, the server went 7 days without a problem; then 5 days; now it lasted 2 days. Judging from my Teamspeak server logs, it crashed today at 12:31. I grep'd through my log files and found this information:

http://pastebin.com/i4iQWD6b

Relevant lines may be 4, 27, and 52.

When I installed Debian 6.01 via netinstall a few weeks ago, I had it set to dhcp but changed it to a static address later. Here's my network configuration:

ifconfig

Code:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:50:bf:b2:cc:59  
          inet addr:192.168.1.230  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::250:bfff:feb2:cc59/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:4754193 errors:0 dropped:45543 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:6599307 errors:1553 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:486471070 (463.9 MiB)  TX bytes:757543492 (722.4 MiB)
          Interrupt:17 Base address:0x3000 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          inet6 addr: ::1/128 Scope:Host
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:1772 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:1772 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:131160 (128.0 KiB)  TX bytes:131160 (128.0 KiB)

route -n

Code:

Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
192.168.1.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
0.0.0.0         192.168.1.1     0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0

/etc/networks

Code:

default 	192.168.1.0
loopback	127.0.0.1
link-local	169.254.0.0

/etc/network/interfaces

Code:

# This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet static
       address 192.168.1.230
       gateway 192.168.1.1
       network 192.168.1.0
       netmask 255.255.255.0
       broadcast 192.168.1.255
auto eth0

iptables is empty as I haven't configured it yet.

And here's the lshw output about the card:

Code:

-network
                description: Ethernet interface
                product: NC100 Network Everywhere Fast Ethernet 10/100
                vendor: ADMtek
                physical id: d
                bus info: pci@0000:01:0d.0
                logical name: eth0
                version: 11
                serial: 00:50:bf:b2:cc:59
                width: 32 bits
                clock: 33MHz
                capabilities: pm bus_master cap_list rom ethernet physical
                configuration: broadcast=yes driver=tulip driverversion=1.1.15-NAPI ip=192.168.1.230 latency=64 maxlatency=255 mingnt=255 multicast=yes
                resources: irq:17 ioport:3000(size=256) memory:f4100000-f41003ff memory:10000000-1001ffff(prefetchable)

Any help would be appreciated!

brokenpromises · 05-15-2011, 06:20 PM

I had similar issues with sporadic connectivity, until I disabled TCP checksum offloading. While my situation was different, I find that often times cheaper no-name brand network adapters (no offence) don't like doing hardware checksumming and may crash out. Might pay to try disabling it and see what happens?

Can you post the output of

Code:

ethtool eth0

(You might not have ethtool installed - if you don't you can install it using apt-get install ethertool).

-Tyler- · 05-15-2011, 07:49 PM

Thanks for the reply! Here's my ethtool output.

Code:

root@jupiter~# ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
No data available

From my research it looks like this means ethtool doesn't support my card, which is at the bottom here.

Code:

root@jupiter:~# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82810 GMCH (Graphics Memory Controller Hub) (rev 03)
00:01.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82810 (CGC) Chipset Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801AA PCI Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801AA ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801AA IDE Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801AA USB Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.5 Multimedia audio controller: Intel Corporation 82801AA AC'97 Audio Controller (rev 02)
01:0d.0 Ethernet controller: ADMtek NC100 Network Everywhere Fast Ethernet 10/100 (rev 11)

This is a cheap ethernet card, so that may be the problem. My ISP installed it when we were transitioning from dial-up to cable about 7 years ago. I checked lsmod and it uses the tulip driver.

I tried disabling TCP checksum offloading with this:

Code:

root@jupiter:~# ethtool -K eth0 rx off tx off
Cannot set device rx csum settings: Operation not supported

So does this mean my best bet would be to put in a more reliable network card?

brokenpromises · 05-15-2011, 07:53 PM

I think I made a mistake in my original post,

can you paste output of

Code:

ethtool -k eth0

? I forgot the -k.

-Tyler- · 05-15-2011, 08:09 PM

Code:

root@jupiter:~# ethtool -k eth0
Offload parameters for eth0:
rx-checksumming: off
tx-checksumming: off
scatter-gather: off
tcp-segmentation-offload: off
udp-fragmentation-offload: off
generic-segmentation-offload: off
generic-receive-offload: off
large-receive-offload: off
ntuple-filters: off
receive-hashing: off

Looks like the checksumming is off.

brokenpromises · 05-15-2011, 08:23 PM

At this point I'd give up and get a new NIC because they're cheap and I'm lazy

perhaps someone more knowledgeable will be around shortly to help you out.

-Tyler- · 05-15-2011, 08:25 PM

Thanks, I'll try switching the card within a few days. Hopefully that will work!