General Questions

Hi all.

I've been the happy user og m0n0 for several years now. And have gone from pc to laptop to alix wrap.
The last couple of years it has run as alix.

Tuesday the 5th of january 2010 i got my new fiber optic internet connection with the data capacity of 60/60.
The installation went smooth (disregarding the heavy snow weather here in Denmark).
And when doing the switch from the old copper phone line to the new fiber line, all went as hoped. The m0n0 simply just kept running as allways.

Later that day i ran into a problem though - my connection to the internet had suddenly vanished  
After a couple of minutes the line was backup up again and I really didn't think more of it.
approx 30 minutes later ... it happened again. This time I got curious enough to log into m0n0 to see if I could find a problem via the logs.

System log showed me that the new fiber line aparently has a DHCP timeout on 4-5 minutes. Shortest lease I've ever seen!
But at some point, the m0n0 looses the ability to get a new lease (dont know if that is the correct way of explaining it).
But having tested this for several days now, I can only point my finger at m0n0.

Running the m0n0 with no real throughput on the connection - will leave the connection running as supposed.
FTP connection from outside and downloading from me can be done (I tranferred 3½ Gb) and every time the DHCP kicked in, my outgoing data was reduced to nothing for about 10 seconds. WHY is that?

NNTP from newshost xennews ... they have a 30 mbit connection available.
Running for about 10 minutes - and the line breaks down. m0n0 fails with log entry "no route to host".

I have attached a pdf with the last of the log.

I have tried the following:
Factory reset of m0n0 and running it directly from "factory settings" (allmost - some changes are nessesary) :-)
But the m0n0 still fails on approx 10-15 mbit payload on the conenction when running nntp.

Using a standard Zyxel NBG420N router - ALL IS WORKING  
No matter how much throughput I try to squeeze through - it will not fail the same way.

So my only hope now is to hear if anyone can shed some light on this. Because I really REALLY dont like using a zyxel router - and miss out on all the goodies from my m0n0.

Kind Regards
Bimmer_R

I've just spoken to my ISP.

And they have had a look at my log and what they are telling me is :

"you have a problem with your router."
"It seems it does not handle the whole DHCP thingy correct."

He said something like - When your router releases the IP address - it seems that the router is not sure that it can get a new one.
It should hold on to the IP - until it's sure that a new one is ready.

Something about the correct way of handling DHCP.

Can anyone shed some light on this

Kind Regards
Bimmer_R

just updating information:
I just stumpled upon this information.

http://m0n0.ch/wall/list/showmsg.php?id=338/80

Which is the exact same problem.
So what i'm gonna try is:
Downgrade to latest beta before final 1.3 (I had that running for quite som time).
Or see if I can make a switch to pfSense.

More info to come

Bimmer_R

Since no-one had any input regarding this. I took the time to do the following.

And should anyone else stumple upon this problem - here is a solution.

1. Update my Alix board BIOS to latest
2. Install pfSense 1.2.2 (I only have a 256Mb CF Card).

The system has been online the last 24 hours without any problems whatsoever.

I will (next week) update to a 4 GB CF card and a newer nanobsd version of pfSense.

So .. bye for now .. m0n0 

Kind Regards
Bimmer_R

your isp is giving very short leases, 246 seconds according to your log.

there is a fix submitted for dhcp not running the dhclient script

see http://forum.m0n0.ch/index.php/topic,3613.0.html

Hi brushedmoss.

Yes - my isp is handing out STATIC IP's as dhcp with a very short lease.
I cannot get any explanation from them - but anyways that shouldn't be an issue.

Thanks for your answer - but for now Im running the pfSense nanobsd version.
And I must admit ... i kinda like it 

The accumulated graphs are a must in later versions of m0n0 ... they are very nice.
And I no longer have to install 3. party logging to do this.

Im pt. running the 1.2.3 RELEASE which is running as smooth as my dear old m0n0.
The only drawback was the installation - I had to throw money at a 4gb cf card ... approx 10-15$ 
And the writing of the card takes a while with a 4gb image.

But nevertheless - I'll stick with the pfSense for now. I'll pop back and follow the development of m0n0.
But I don't think I'll switch back until m0n0 is upgraded to a newer freebsd.

Kind regards.
Bimmer_R