Ubuntu Proliant DL360 network issues

[Carl O'Day]

I installed Xubuntu (6.06) on a brand spanking new DL 360 and am having strange network card issues. The OS recognizes the Broadcom 5740 cards that came installed and accessing the network works fine. The problem I am running into is that client computers not connected to the same switch as the HP's can't access them (ping/ssh/http). If I ping the client from the server, then I get access for a limited time.

I have tried several switches (Cisco, Netgear,..), and different ports on the same switch with the same result. The problem appears to be that the clients aren't being added to the arp cache if they sit outside the switch. Xubuntu on non HP servers plugged into the same switch don't suffer from this issue. Neither do Windows or AIX boxes.

Any ideas?

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

The first thing that needs to be done is check with networking and see if there is any mac address blocking. Our networking department started doing switch based mac address filtering and I never got the memo. This lead to several needless OS installs.

After this is confirmed, try a laptop or other server on the same ip address and switch ports. If the problem occurs only on those switch ports go back and beat up networking some more.

IF not, then patch ubuntu it has a bug.

SEP

[Karsten Breivik_1]

Strange thing you are experiencing there. I am afraid I do not have a good answer for that.

A question on the side: Why would you want to run Ubuntu on a server - I find it to be more of a desktop OS? I tried it, but found that I would constantly have to install extra packages fo my server needs.

Maybe an idea to try Debian since you are working in that direction (Ubuntu is a Debian derivative). Also, Slackware or Redhat Enterprise which is more server oriented. Or perhaps Fedora Core or Suse which are more "everything for everyone" distributions.

[rick jones]

Broadcome 5740's, or 5704's? Anyway, to see whether the problem is IP and above or data-link (ethernet) and below you might install linkloop:

http://freshmeat.net/projects/linkloop/

which can do a "link-level" ping between two systems. If the other system isn't HP-UX you will need to be running the linkloop server on it.

While you are at it, it would be good to check the output of dmesg. Some other things to try to see what might be happening:

*) from the _console_ try unloading and reloading the driver (IIRC that will be tg3) with modprobe - modprobe -r tg3; modprobe tg3 - you may need to re-ifconfig after that.

*) some sort of ethtool command to cause the NIC to reset

*) disconnecting and reconnecting the cable(s)