[kennedy]

Either OS X or my Macs or my network is sick...

We regularly (more than once a day) have to go to the computer room and power cycle the router to get the computers seeing the network again. Its damned annoying.

I've replaced the router... same exact problem. I have a Netgear router and Netgear switches... a network of Cat5E cabling... a G4 Tower as a server running OS X Server... and a network of about a dozen G3 iMacs.

Any suggestions at all would be welcome.

Are there any OS X tools that I can use to help test and debug the network?

If one of the Mac network cards is the problem, how would I discover that? If one of the network cables is the problem, how would I discover that? If one of the switches, how? If the problem is OS X doing something "bad", how would I discover that????

[Cipher13]

Okay, it's a problem with the router.

There's nothing inherently wrong with it, necessarily, but with its configuration.

I need to know your exact hardware setup... ie...

iMacs -> switch -> router -> G4 or whatever it happens to be.

I don't know... is the router attempting to give out DHCP leases when it shouldn't be?

How are the machines configured? DHCP or manual?

I need to know more, then I can help you.

There isn't a program that's gonna fix this one... it'll require good old fashioned brainpower, maybe with the help of some utilities...

[kennedy]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
I need to know your exact hardware setup... ie...

iMacs -> switch -> router -> G4 or whatever it happens to be.

I don't know... is the router attempting to give out DHCP leases when it shouldn't be?

How are the machines configured? DHCP or manual?

I need to know more, then I can help you.

Thanks!!

Okay, I have a Netgear FR318 router with uplink connected to a DSL modem and downlink connected to the first port on my Netgear FS517TS switch.

The Netgear FS517TS switch has one Gigabit port connected to my Dual 800 G4 Tower. It has 16 10/100 ports that connect with 2' patch cables to my patch panels. From those panels, cat5e is run to all the offices within 300'.

Four of those lines run to a closet with another patch panel, to which all the other offices are run. There I currently have a pair of Netgear FS108 switches whose uplinks go to one of the cables running back to the main patch panels and then into the FS517TS switch. The downlinks of these two satellite switches are connected to the offices that are further than 300' from the main panels.

In the offices are G3 iMacs... 500MHz or 600MHz.
In addition, two offices have PeeCee's running Windoze... they just connect for internet access... no Mac connectivity currently.
One office has an ethernet printer, a Lexmark Optra C710N.

Two machines are configured manually: the G4 Tower, the server, is configured as 192.168.0.2; the printer is configured
as 192.168.0.3. The router, 192.168.0.1, is configured to give addresses from 192.168.0.10 to 192.168.0.63. All other machines connect via DHCP. I am not running DNS on the network... all is done via IP numbers.

The server is running OS X Server 10.1.5. The client macs OS X 10.1.5. (The problem existed with earlier versions as well.) All user dirs live on the server; users can login to any iMac and access their account.

Symptoms:
* Loss of network requiring router to be power cycled
* Hang at blue screen during restart, requiring router to be power cycled
* Extremely slow booting of iMacs; sometimes waiting on network configuration; sometimes on NetTime (when I had that enabled)

Let me know what more you need ... any help or suggestions would be TREMENDOUSLY appreciated.

[Cipher13]

Okay, the iMac booting issue - do they NetBoot, or boot locally, after which users log on remotely? If they boot remotely, then I'd say it's simply the fact that they're loading a rather large operating system off a 100 Mb connection (which isn't too bad, mind you); with the possibility of having less than 100 Mb available to them (if many are booting at once); and factoring the large distance into the equation (even with the signal repeaters/switches). If they boot locally, I'd say they're choking waiting for an IP address from the router, or looking for some network device which A) doesn't exist, or B) is, itself, in trouble.

My guess at this point would be that the router (1 port, I'm assuming?) is simply freaking out.

Given your use of switches, it shouldn't. If you'd used multiple routers, I would have blamed that straight away.

There's no reason for it to freak out unless it's being overloaded; now, does the router accept the fact that 2 of the machines are configured staticly? I don't see why it wouldn't, but nonetheless.

What I would suggest is running the iMacs with static IP's for a while, and see if the problem still occurs.

If it does, we've eliminated a lot of things (DHCP is always one of the first things I'll attempt to blame).

Oh, another thing. Does the router handle the Internet for the rest of the machines, or does the G4? Try setting the network up so that it goes like this:

aDSL : G4 : rest of network

As opposed to your current setup, which is:

aDSL: all of network

Put the G4 between the network and the aDSL. Got a second NIC? It'd only need to be a 10 meg one... then run NATD on the G4.

Thoughts?

[kennedy]

Originally posted by Cipher13:
Okay, the iMac booting issue - do they NetBoot, or boot locally, after which users log on remotely?

They boot locally. AFAIK, 10.1.5 does not support NetBoot of OS X machines. Is there a way?

If they boot remotely, then I'd say it's simply the fact that they're loading a rather large operating system off a 100 Mb connection (which isn't too bad, mind you); with the possibility of having less than 100 Mb available to them (if many are booting at once); and factoring the large distance into the equation (even with the signal repeaters/switches). [/B]

I *am* considering NetBoot when I upgrade to 10.2. Should I not? Should I stick with Network Install? (I definitely want one or the other.)

If they boot locally, I'd say they're choking waiting for an IP address from the router, or looking for some network device which A) doesn't exist, or B) is, itself, in trouble.

My guess at this point would be that the router (1 port, I'm assuming?) is simply freaking out. [/B]

Its an 8 port router, but I am just using two of the ports: one uplink to the DSL and one downlink to the big switch.

This little network should be cake for the router, shouldn't it? This is one of Netgear's better routers. But there is little doubt that the router seems to be freaking out. The big question is why and how do I make it stop freaking out.

Given your use of switches, it shouldn't. If you'd used multiple routers, I would have blamed that straight away.

There's no reason for it to freak out unless it's being overloaded; now, does the router accept the fact that 2 of the machines are configured staticly? I don't see why it wouldn't, but nonetheless. [/B]

It seems to accept it fine. I haven't had any troubles with those two devices. And it obeys the range I give it for DHCP. But it may, in fact be freaking out because of this.

What I would suggest is running the iMacs with static IP's for a while, and see if the problem still occurs.

If it does, we've eliminated a lot of things (DHCP is always one of the first things I'll attempt to blame). [/B]

Okay, I'll try that today. I wonder what implications that will have when I go to 10.2 and either NetBoot or Network Install... do those have provision for incrementing the static IP setting?

Oh, another thing. Does the router handle the Internet for the rest of the machines, or does the G4? [/B]

The router does. That's the main reason I got the hardware router rather than using the G4 as the router... I wanted the hardware firewall.

Try setting the network up so that it goes like this:

aDSL : G4 : rest of network

As opposed to your current setup, which is:

aDSL: all of network

Put the G4 between the network and the aDSL. Got a second NIC? It'd only need to be a 10 meg one... then run NATD on the G4.

Thoughts? [/B]

I don't have a second NIC... and I am reluctant to put my fileserving G4 as the router/firewall. I'll consider it (or use of another Mac as router/firewall) after other options fail, though.

I'll get back to you on the static IP results.

Thanks,

Brian

[kennedy]

Follow-up question:

Should I configure it "Manually", or "Manually using DHCP Router"?

Does the latter setting just mean "use DHCP query to find the address of the router"? Or does it mean "use DHCP protocol for telling it your static address"?

If the former, then I am probably best using "Manually" since it may be those queries causing it to freak out. If the latter, then I probably need to use "Manually using DHCP Router" so that it tells the router in the proper way. But I don't know if such is even valid... I've stepped to details below my knowledge of DHCP.

Which do you recommend I use?

Thanks.

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by kennedy:


They boot locally. AFAIK, 10.1.5 does not support NetBoot of OS X machines. Is there a way?

Not as far as I know. Okay, just checking.

Originally posted by kennedy:
I *am* considering NetBoot when I upgrade to 10.2. Should I not? Should I stick with Network Install? (I definitely want one or the other.)

Well, I haven't had the chance to experiment with it yet; we only got the Xserve the other day at work. Until I play with it, I can't really say...

Originally posted by kennedy:
Its an 8 port router, but I am just using two of the ports: one uplink to the DSL and one downlink to the big switch.

This little network should be cake for the router, shouldn't it? This is one of Netgear's better routers. But there is little doubt that the router seems to be freaking out. The big question is why and how do I make it stop freaking out.

Well, it should be able to handle it fine. We've just gotta figure out what's messing with it.

In all honesty, this might have nothing to do with the router.

The PC's lose the net too, right? Not just the Macs? Perhaps one of the switches in between is a little flaky.

Hang on - do *all* computers lose it, or just the ones in that one 'group' coming off a particular switch?

Originally posted by kennedy:
It seems to accept it fine. I haven't had any troubles with those two devices. And it obeys the range I give it for DHCP. But it may, in fact be freaking out because of this.

It really shouldn't

Originally posted by kennedy:
Okay, I'll try that today. I wonder what implications that will have when I go to 10.2 and either NetBoot or Network Install... do those have provision for incrementing the static IP setting?

No, they don't. However, when you move from 'DHCP' mode to manual, it should retain the IP address in the text field - so it's not really a problem anyway.

Originally posted by kennedy:
The router does. That's the main reason I got the hardware router rather than using the G4 as the router... I wanted the hardware firewall.

Just personally, I'd prefer a software firewall - they're much more configurable, and in my experience, more secure too. 10.1.5 has IPFW built in - use that, it's very good when you can use it.

Originally posted by kennedy:
I don't have a second NIC... and I am reluctant to put my fileserving G4 as the router/firewall. I'll consider it (or use of another Mac as router/firewall) after other options fail, though.

I'll get back to you on the static IP results.

Thanks,

Brian

Take an NIC out of one of the PC's for an experiment.

It is a bit of a risk having the fileserver as the first line of defence, true. Is there any way you could get a cheap (hell, a 486 running e-smith would do) box for the purposes of this test?

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by kennedy:
Follow-up question:

Should I configure it "Manually", or "Manually using DHCP Router"?

Does the latter setting just mean "use DHCP query to find the address of the router"? Or does it mean "use DHCP protocol for telling it your static address"?

If the former, then I am probably best using "Manually" since it may be those queries causing it to freak out. If the latter, then I probably need to use "Manually using DHCP Router" so that it tells the router in the proper way. But I don't know if such is even valid... I've stepped to details below my knowledge of DHCP.

Which do you recommend I use?

Thanks.

Manually.

I've never bothered with 'manually using DHCP' - I'd assume it grabbed the details from the DHCP server and then allowed you to alter those settings. I have no idea. Perhaps it takes a permanent lease? As you said. I'd say that's the most likely thing. That's perfectly valid; it's what we're moving to at work (permanent leases on all machines. Hopefully we can get the IP's reserved by their AirPort MAC address).

Use manually, either way. Set the DHCP range handout of the router one or two higher, so that you have 192.168.0.1 - 192.168.0.5 to yourself to play with.

[kennedy]

Follow-up question:

Should I configure it "Manually", or "Manually using DHCP Router"?

Does the latter setting just mean "use DHCP query to find the address of the router"? Or does it mean "use DHCP protocol for telling it your static address"?

If the former, then I am probably best using "Manually" since it may be those queries causing it to freak out. If the latter, then I probably need to use "Manually using DHCP Router" so that it tells the router in the proper way. But I don't know if such is even valid... I've stepped to details below my knowledge of DHCP.

Which do you recommend I use?

Thanks.

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by kennedy:
Follow-up question:

Should I configure it "Manually", or "Manually using DHCP Router"?

Does the latter setting just mean "use DHCP query to find the address of the router"? Or does it mean "use DHCP protocol for telling it your static address"?

If the former, then I am probably best using "Manually" since it may be those queries causing it to freak out. If the latter, then I probably need to use "Manually using DHCP Router" so that it tells the router in the proper way. But I don't know if such is even valid... I've stepped to details below my knowledge of DHCP.

Which do you recommend I use?

Thanks.

Huh? You already asked that...

[kennedy]

Originally posted by Cipher13:


Huh? You already asked that...

Don't ask me... it must be my evil twin.

[Cipher13]

Originally posted by kennedy:


Don't ask me... it must be my evil twin.

Fair enough

Did you try what I suggested?

[kennedy]

Originally posted by Cipher13:


Fair enough

Did you try what I suggested?

Sorta... I started switching over to static addressing... but then my router status page showed an error... too many leases, exceed license. Ahhhh!!

So, the problem has been my stupid Netgear router was kicking people machines off when I got one too many on at one time. The kicked off machine would try to acquire a new lease, kicking someone else off... I assume this led to a full meltdown... or perhaps the router intentionally went south from there.

I had never seen the error before because the license was never exceeded... cause it would immediately kick machines off to get back under the limit.

SOLUTION: toss my Netgear router with its silly per-lease licensing and get a Linksys router.

Thanks for the suggestion... didn't solve the problem... but allowed my to discover it.


Brian