[ale] Please help: BellSouth ADSL hangs with sendmail andup2date

James P. Kinney III jkinney at localnetsolutions.com
Sun Jul 28 10:48:44 EDT 2002


Chuck,
I am very suspicious that the error may be in the route tables. I hate
giving this solution but:

Set the box for only one access route and it should be the bellsouth
gateway. Unplug the cable access. reboot (see why I hate this!). Retest
connections.

There is no "flush" in the route command. It needs one. What netstat -rn
shows is what is configured in /proc, not what is cached in the kernel
route tables.

Hmm. An alternative to rebooting may be to stop networking entirely and
unload all networking related modules. This has a nice effect of
flushing all cached info and resetting NICs when the module is reloaded.
I've used this stunt to unlock NIC's that get "hung" (older 3com's would
choke sometimes with strange attack-looking connections) 

On Sun, 2002-07-28 at 08:42, Chuck Mattern wrote:
> 
> > Bellsouth can be a pain when trying to diagnose problems.=20
> > 
> > 1. Make sure you are running up2date from command line. So you need to
> > use:
> > 
> > up2date -v --nox
> > 
> > The -v will give more verbose output. --nox will run CLI only.
> 
> This is from the my main machine using the BellSouth pipe:
> 
> # up2date -vui --nox
> Error communicating with server.  The message was:
> Connection aborted by the user
> Error communicating with server.  The message was:
> EOF
> #
> 
> Then I only changed the default route from that if the BellSouth firewall to 
> that of the AT&T firewall and I get these results:
> 
> # up2date -vui --nox
> 
> Retrieving list of all available packages...
> ########################################
> 
> Removing installed packages from list of updates...
> ########################################
> 
> Removing packages marked to skip from list...
> ########################################
> 
> Getting headers for available packages...
> ########################################
> 
> Removing packages with files marked to skip from list...
> ########################################
> 
> Getting headers for skipped packages...
> ########################################
> The following Packages were marked to be skipped by your configuration:
> 
> Name                                    Version        Rel  Reason
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> kernel-source                           2.4.18         5    Pkg name/pattern
> [RHBA-2002:110-09] An updated kernel that fixes several bugs is available for Red Hat Linux 7.3.
> An interaction between grub and machines using the DAC960 driver has been
> resolved.  The Pentium IV SMP PGE/pagetable bug has also been fixed.  In
> addition, bugs in the NFS client code have been fixed.
> 
> 
> Testing package set / solving RPM inter-dependencies...
> ########################################
> Retrieving selected packages...
> cpp-2.96-112.i386.rpm:      ########################## Done.                   
> ethereal-0.9.4-0.7.3.0.i386 ########################## Done.                   
> ethereal-gnome-0.9.4-0.7.3. ########################## Done.                   
> gcc-2.96-112.i386.rpm:      ########################## Done.                   
> gcc-c++-2.96-112.i386.rpm:  ########################## Done.                   
> gcc-g77-2.96-112.i386.rpm:  ########################## Done.                   
> gcc-objc-2.96-112.i386.rpm: ########################## Done.                   
> gdb-5.2-2.i386.rpm:         ########################## Done.                   
> glibc-2.2.5-37.i686.rpm:    ########################## Done.                   
> glibc-common-2.2.5-37.i386. ########################## Done.                   
> glibc-devel-2.2.5-37.i386.r ########################## Done.                   
> glibc-utils-2.2.5-37.i386.r ########################## Done.                   
> libstdc++-2.96-112.i386.rpm ########################## Done.                   
> libstdc++-devel-2.96-112.i3 ########################## Done.                   
> mod_ssl-2.8.7-6.i386.rpm:   ########################## Done.                   
> Preparing...                ########################################### [100%]
>    1:glibc-common           ########################################### [  6%]
>    2:glibc                  ########################################### [ 13%]
>    3:cpp                    ########################################### [ 20%]
>    4:ethereal               ########################################### [ 26%]
>    5:ethereal-gnome         ########################################### [ 33%]
>    6:gdb                    ########################################### [ 40%]
>    7:glibc-devel            ########################################### [ 46%]
>    8:gcc                    ########################################### [ 53%]
>    9:gcc-g77                ########################################### [ 60%]
>   10:gcc-objc               ########################################### [ 66%]
>   11:glibc-utils            ########################################### [ 73%]
>   12:libstdc++              ########################################### [ 80%]
>   13:libstdc++-devel        ########################################### [ 86%]
>   14:gcc-c++                ########################################### [ 93%]
>   15:mod_ssl                ########################################### [100%]
> # 
> 
> 
> > Read the /etc/sysconfig/rhn/* files. They tell info about which servers
> > you are using. Up2date uses http (port 80) protocols.
> 
> www.rhns.redhat.com
> 
> > You may be just unlucky and have a flaky connection (Bellsouth) that is
> > loosing the "connection busy. try later" reply to your up2date
> > connection request.
> 
> Although this is getting frustrating I prefer to think of this as an 
> educational opportunity rather than bad luck.
> 
> > Or you may have a broken up2date binary. Download and rpm -Uvh from the
> > GaTech site. Be sure to get up2date from the redhat/linux/update area.=20
> 
> I doubt this at it works perfectly going via AT&T but I will try this if all
> else fails.  The rpm I'm running is the latest "stable" one from the redhat
> site garnered through my AT&T link.
> 
> > If that croaks, it's time for some more detailed info. Put a hub between
> > the modem and ethernet card on your connection box. Put a second box on
> > the hub. Don't use a switch. Use tcpdump and related friends to grab the
> > traffic when you run up2date. Post what the tcpdump shows.
> 
> Will do, I have a personal spare hub at work that I'll bring home tomorrow.  
> At the risk of showing my ignorance, will this be usable running PPPoE?  I was 
> under the impression that this is essentially a tunnel and that I would not be 
> able to examine the packets within.  BTW is there an O'Reilly (or equivalent) 
> book on PPPoE?
> 
> At this point I suspect that getting up2date working may well take care of my 
> sendmail problems as well since the symptoms are so similar (connection 
> establishes then hangs).
> 
> Thanks to all for you're ongoing assistance!
> 
> Regards,
> Chuck
> -- 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> |Chuck Mattern	        | "People often find it easier to be a result |
> |camattern at acm.org      | of the past than a cause of the future."    |
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
-- 
James P. Kinney III   \Changing the mobile computing world/
President and CEO      \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244             \.___________________________./

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7 



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