Topic: Server dropping ISP?

[Brad]

Being a newbie to this, I was told that e-smith would pretty much run on any machine (this friend is running pretty much the same PC with a larger HD).

Therefore, I am currently running SME Server V5 using a 166mhz 128mb ram 2G HD generic PC as a dedicated server/gateway.  I simply want to use it as a DHCP server for my internal home network for shared access to my Cable ISP (Charter).

The DHCP piece works great, but, when browsing the internet I can hit a couple of sites and then the browser quits responding.  At this point I can go to the console and test internet access with a failure message guaranteed.  A reboot of the server allows connection again, but with the same results.

I have reloaded V5 a time or two hoping to correct any errors, but with no luck.  Also, I have tried V4.1.2 a couple of times with the same results but with a little more browsing ability (time-wise).

I have searched and searched the discussion forums here for any others with this problem but with no luck.  Any suggestions are appreciated.

[Brad]

This has been resolved.  Thanks to anyone who may have read this.

[Bob Karp]

I have been having the same problem recently.

For background, I am using AT&T Broadband cable connection.  I had been using esmith v4.1.2 as a gateway and it was working fine.  Recently (end of february, begining of march 2002) AT&T broadband has instituded some changes such as having to switch their entire domain from .mediaone.net (they bought out mediaone) to the new attbi.com.

I am unsure everything that this change entailed at AT&T, but ever since the changeover was implemented I have been experienceing problems as you discussed.  I will get seemingly random internet lockouts.  When rebooting the server during these times, I get this message:

IP_MASQ: ip_masq_new(proto_ICMP):could not get free masq entry(free=36864)

This message will spam for a few screens during shutdown during the problem times.  Unfortunately, I am not very astute in these sort of network problems.  I have been searching for an answer to this.  I have not called my ISP (AT&T) as I do not know what I could ask them that would be relevant to this problem, so I thought I would tag along this post to see if anyone else has encountered this and has found a solution.

[Jeremy]

Do you guys have a static or dynamic address from your ISP's. I they are using DHCP you probably are loosing your connection for being idle. I beleive there is a .rpm that can keep the dhcp address alive by frequently contacting the dhcp server. Hope this helps.

[Barry Fitzgerald]

I am having exactly the same problem. What solution did you eventually come up with?
 
Thanks in advance..

Barry

[Laszlo Palya]

I had the same problem. It is caused by DHCP timeout.
I am on cable, and noticed that my IP address never changes.
So what I did was; took the IP what I had and assigned it to the E-smith server as a static IP on the external interface.
Since then, my connection is always up.
)