network woes

[Trent Shipley]

Benjamin Francom wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 7:18 PM, Mark Phillips
> <mark at phillipsmarketing.biz> wrote:
>> Trent,
>>
>> I ran into a similar problem today - my network slowed waaaaaaaaaaaaaay down
>> on me. All I used was ping to methodically to check all the connections and
>> found that a switch was reseting itself and dropping packets. Basically, I
>> turn everything off, reset all the routers, cable modems, etc, and then turn
>> on one piece of equipment at a time and ping to the main router to see if I
>> can connect and if there is any packet loss. You can find a out a lot of
>> information by being methodical and knowing your network topology.
>>
>> Good Luck!
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> On Tue, Dec 22, 2009 at 5:52 PM, Trent Shipley <tshipley at deru.com> wrote:
>>> Somewhere my connection to the Internet is borken.  Load times take
>>> forever.  It doesn't seem to effect the wireless client routers, but I
>>> have had trouble on both the wired machines under Ubuntu 9.10 and
>>> Windows Vista.  Sometimes the Linux machine effectively looses
>>> connectivity with the Internet.  It comes back if I log out of my X
>>> session and log back in ... most of the time.  I have a firewall router,
>>> but effectively no household LAN since I've been too lazy to really
>>> figure out how to configure the Ubuntu desktop machine as a primary
>>> domain controller, then adjust it's firewall to suit.
>>>
>>>
>>> I'd like an idiot friendly tool to help track this problem down,
>>> preferably on the Linux machine which seems to experience the problem
>>> most consistently.
>>>
>>> Baring a GUI tool friendly to mortal users, I am not above using the
>>> @#$% command line and a text editor.
>>>
>>>
>>> I am not too network savvy.  I have to look up the layers of the OSI
>>> stack every time.  What is a reasonable diagnostic or fault tree for
>>> approaching my symptoms.
>>>
>>> It is also worth noting that this problem seems to date back to
>>> precisely when I upgraded from Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10.
>>>
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>>
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> 
> Unplug all devices for at least one min.  Start with modem and work
> your way up to the PC
> The Vista and Ubuntu machines are separate machines, not a single dual
> boot, right?
> 
> tracert=windows
> traceroute=linux
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I have "rebuilt" the network a couple of times from the modem up.  My 
suspicion is focused on the Ubuntu desktop because of the coincidence 
that the problem started with a major upgrade.

Yes. We have the following on the network ... not all at the same time.
* Qwest modem, outside the firewall.
* Netgear wired/802.11g wireless router. No evident problems with 
wireless connections.
* Ubuntu 9.10 on Dell hardware.  Wired connection. (Main suspect) 
Thinking about putting in a new Ethernet card since I have it "in stock" 
anyway and it's doing me no good in the box.
* Apple notebook.  Wired connection.
** Windows Vista.  Have seen some symptoms.
** OS X.  mild symptoms.
* Apple notebook.  Wireless.  No known symptoms.
* Apple iMac. Wireless  No known symptoms.
* (Occasional) HP netbook running Ubuntu 9.10 netbook remix.  Wireless. 
  No known symptoms.