[Techtalk] ethernet card problem

[Maria McKinley]

Chris Wilson wrote:
> Hi Maria,
> 
> On Fri, 12 Mar 2010, Maria McKinley wrote:
>> John.Sturdy wrote:
>>> it could be that the lack of log messages indicates that the machine itself
>>> (and its NICs) is operating normally (or at least, in a way that it can't
>>> tell apart from normally) and the problem is elsewhere, such as congestion
>>> on the network.
>> When this happened (twice) I was unable to ping in or out (tried both 
>> ips and names). Ifconfig showed that it still thought it had the correct 
>> ip. This has not happened since, so I have my fingers crossed there was 
>> just some weird glitch in the network causing the problem.
> 
> Do you have a spare switch you could swap in for the one that this machine 
> is connected to? Preferably a managed one with an IP address that you can 
> ping?
> 
> Could you also try running ethtool on the interface when it's not working, 
> and see what it says about the link state?
> 
> Cheers, Chris.

I do have a spare switch, but I suspect the switch is not the problem, 
because it is my main switch, and none of the other computers showed any 
problems, including my mail/web server, which sees the most traffic.

I don't know ethtool, but a quick look shows I should know it. I'm going 
to install it now, and give it a try if it ever happens again.

thanks,
maria