Ethernet connection weirdly not working mornings

06-29-2011, 05:03 AM

Since switching to a new machine and upgrading to the latest Sid, I've
been having some weird problems getting a wired connection to the net.

Running `ifup eth0` brings up a net connection -- but not in the
morning for some reason....times out with a "No DHCPOFFERS received"
message. Repeatedly. I've been trying this every day for over a week,
and like clockwork, morning = no connection, evening = connection.

BUT, even though the ethernet connection doesn't work in the mornings,
`ifup wlan0` will bring up a wireless connection in the morning just
fine. This "I'm not a morning-type" ethernet is coming out of the very
same NETGEAR wifi router that successfully provides a wifi connection
any time of day.

And when I try my old laptop (running a not-as-up-to-date Sid), it
works fine, gets that ethernet connection in the mornings every time.

My /etc/network/interfaces file looks like this:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp
iface wlan0 inet dhcp
pre-up wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -Dwext -B -c /home/john/.wpa_supplicant.conf
post-down killall -q wpa_supplicant

And my ~/.wpa_supplicant.conf looks like this:

ctrl_interface=/var/run/wpa_supplicant
network={
ssid="mynet"
psk="****************"
}

Thanks for any help sorting this out,

John

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06-29-2011, 10:09 AM

Hello,

Am 29.06.2011 07:03, schrieb John Magolske:
> Since switching to a new machine and upgrading to the latest Sid, I've
> been having some weird problems getting a wired connection to the net.
>
> Running `ifup eth0` brings up a net connection -- but not in the
> morning for some reason....times out with a "No DHCPOFFERS received"
> message. Repeatedly. I've been trying this every day for over a week,
> and like clockwork, morning = no connection, evening = connection.
>
> BUT, even though the ethernet connection doesn't work in the mornings,
> `ifup wlan0` will bring up a wireless connection in the morning just
> fine. This "I'm not a morning-type" ethernet is coming out of the very
> same NETGEAR wifi router that successfully provides a wifi connection
> any time of day.
>
> And when I try my old laptop (running a not-as-up-to-date Sid), it
> works fine, gets that ethernet connection in the mornings every time.
To bring light into this issue you shut sniff your ethernet traffic,
when bringing your interface up.
This could be done using wireshark or tcpdump.

Issuing
tcpdump -i eth0 -s 0 -w <outfile>

before "ifup eth0", should give some valuable information.
You can kill tcpdump (Ctrl+C) after the DHCP timeout.

If you can't interpret the resulting capture yourself, you could post it
here.
Then we should be able to see the communication between the dhcp server
und your box.
Of course looking into the server logfile would be a good alternative to
this, but I suppose, that this isn't possible (with a reasonable amount
of effort) for a dhcp server running on a wifi router box.

Another idea: Could there be some kind of child protection running on
the wifi router preventing the access at some time interval for
specified computers?

HTH,
Enno

06-29-2011, 11:18 AM

On 29/06/11 20:09, ï¿½ wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Am 29.06.2011 07:03, schrieb John Magolske:
>> Since switching to a new machine and upgrading to the latest Sid, I've
>> been having some weird problems getting a wired connection to the net.
>>
>> Running `ifup eth0` brings up a net connection -- but not in the
>> morning for some reason....times out with a "No DHCPOFFERS received"
>> message. Repeatedly. I've been trying this every day for over a week,
>> and like clockwork, morning = no connection, evening = connection.
>>
>> BUT, even though the ethernet connection doesn't work in the mornings,
>> `ifup wlan0` will bring up a wireless connection in the morning just
>> fine. This "I'm not a morning-type" ethernet is coming out of the very
>> same NETGEAR wifi router that successfully provides a wifi connection
>> any time of day.
>>
>> And when I try my old laptop (running a not-as-up-to-date Sid), it
>> works fine, gets that ethernet connection in the mornings every time.
> To bring light into this issue you shut sniff your ethernet traffic,
> when bringing your interface up.
> This could be done using wireshark or tcpdump.
>
> Issuing
> tcpdump -i eth0 -s 0 -w <outfile>
>
> before "ifup eth0", should give some valuable information.
> You can kill tcpdump (Ctrl+C) after the DHCP timeout.
>
> If you can't interpret the resulting capture yourself, you could post it
> here.
> Then we should be able to see the communication between the dhcp server
> und your box.
> Of course looking into the server logfile would be a good alternative to
> this, but I suppose, that this isn't possible (with a reasonable amount
> of effort) for a dhcp server running on a wifi router box.
>
> Another idea: Could there be some kind of child protection running on
> the wifi router preventing the access at some time interval for
> specified computers?
>
> HTH,
> Enno
>

Sounds like the DHCP server "could" have just run out of leases and
needs to wait until some expire (from last night). In which case shorten
the lease life and/or increase the number of available leases.
Login to your router and look at the DHCP server section for lease history.

Cheers

--
"I just have one of those faces.
People come up to me and say, "What's wrong?"
Nothing.
"Well, it takes more energy to frown than it does to smile."
Yeah, you know it takes more energy to point that out than it does to
leave me alone?"
~ Bill Hicks

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06-29-2011, 11:47 AM

Please show the output of the following commands when ordered in the morning
session:

ls -lFa /etc/network /run
df -k

Maybe the link /etc/network/run is broken.

--
Best regards,
Jörg-Volker.

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06-29-2011, 11:47 AM

Please show the output of the following commands when ordered in the morning
session:

ls -lFa /etc/network /run
df -k

Maybe the link /etc/network/run is broken.

--
Best regards,
Jörg-Volker.

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06-29-2011, 01:36 PM

On Tue 28 Jun 2011 at 22:03:30 -0700, John Magolske wrote:

> allow-hotplug eth0
> iface eth0 inet dhcp

This should bring up the interface and configure it when the machine is
booted.

> iface wlan0 inet dhcp
> pre-up wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -Dwext -B -c /home/john/.wpa_supplicant.conf
> post-down killall -q wpa_supplicant

This should not bring up the interface when the machine is booted.

What does happen on booting? The output of the command 'ifconfig -a'
would be useful to see, While you are at it, We may as well know which
card is in the machine. 'lspci' for that.

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06-29-2011, 07:40 PM

Hello,

Enno Gröper a écrit :
>
> Issuing
> tcpdump -i eth0 -s 0 -w <outfile>
>
> before "ifup eth0"

will result in an error. tcpdump won't work if the interface is not UP.

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06-29-2011, 07:40 PM

Hello,

Enno Gröper a écrit :
>
> Issuing
> tcpdump -i eth0 -s 0 -w <outfile>
>
> before "ifup eth0"

will result in an error. tcpdump won't work if the interface is not UP.

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06-30-2011, 04:09 AM

Thanks for the replies all. I feel the issue must have to do with how
this particular ThinkPad is set up, as my other Debian laptop has
no problem connecting via ethernet. And now the ethernet-challenged
machine is not connecting in the evening either (well, this evening
anyhow...), only the wifi connection works ATM.

* Brian <ad44@cityscape.co.uk> [110629 10:29]:
> On Tue 28 Jun 2011 at 22:03:30 -0700, John Magolske wrote:
>
> > allow-hotplug eth0
> > iface eth0 inet dhcp
>
> This should bring up the interface and configure it when the machine is
> booted.
>
> > iface wlan0 inet dhcp
> > pre-up wpa_supplicant -iwlan0 -Dwext -B -c /home/john/.wpa_supplicant.conf
> > post-down killall -q wpa_supplicant
>
> This should not bring up the interface when the machine is booted.
>
> What does happen on booting?

Neither interface is brought up.

> The output of the command 'ifconfig -a' would be useful to see

% ifconfig -a
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr **:**:**:**:**:**
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:35600 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:23582 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:41162613 (39.2 MiB) TX bytes:1674330 (1.5 MiB)
Interrupt:20 Memory:f2600000-f2620000

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:1394 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:1394 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:96020 (93.7 KiB) TX bytes:96020 (93.7 KiB)

wlan0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr **:**:**:**:**:**
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:6194 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:6526 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
RX bytes:3346109 (3.1 MiB) TX bytes:726467 (709.4 KiB)

> which card is in the machine. 'lspci' for that.

% lspci
[...]
00:19.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82567LM Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)
03:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation Ultimate N WiFi Link 5300

Regards,

John

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06-30-2011, 04:10 AM

* Jörg-Volker Peetz <jvpeetz@web.de> [110629 06:25]:
> Please show the output of the following commands when ordered in the morning
> session:
>
> ls -lFa /etc/network /run
> df -k

% ls -lFa /etc/network/run
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 2011-05-09 08:31 /etc/network/run -> /dev/shm/network/

% df -k
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5 271422932 148959344 108676100 58% /
udev 1497148 0 1497148 0% /dev

Regards,

John

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