General Questions

Hi all.

I just setup m0n0wall the other day, and I love it. When the connection is up and going, it works GREAT. The problem I have is since I've set it up, my connection eriodically drops until I log into the m0n0wall web interface. The interval ranges anywhere from 5-10 minutes up to ~2-3 hours

m0n0wall is running with a CD/floppy combo for the moment (I will be reburning my config.xml to the iso and using it strictly as a live CD once I straighten everything else out). The machine specs are:

p3 1gHz
256mb ram
Lan NIC 3com (not sure of exact part #)
WAN NIC is an unknown brand

I've read here before than crappy NIC's will cause alot of performance problems, however, I only have 3mbit DSL, and I cap out my connection at about 2.75mbit (according to SBC/AT&T that's actually good) which is up from 2.5 mbit prior to the m0n0wall, so performance through it isn't the problem.

Physically, here is my setup:

DSL modem (speedstream 4100) - > unknown NIC in m0n0wall (will be replaced as soon as I find my missing spare NIC) link is @ 100mbit full duplex (note: my DSL modem has my username/pass stored in it, so the m0n0wall accepts a connection via DHCP)

3Com NIC in m0n0wall - > linksys wrt54g rev5 router on port #4 (linksys is acting as a switch only) with 100mbit full duplex link

3 of my machines are cabled to the linksys with 100mbit link (ports 1-3), a 4th is wireless (using 802.11g) and yes, my wireless network is secured (no ssid boradcast, mac filter, wpa key)

At first I thought it was the DHCP lease time causing the issue, but all machines on my lan are static, and since I'm not using the router as a router, only a switch

The mem usage on the m0n0wall sits at about 22%, and the cpu usage has never broken 10%.

I am guessing the problem probably starts with the linksys, since it's a certified POS, but I'm looking for a 2nd opinion before I run out to buy a real switch when I missed something stupid in the firewall config.

Where does it fail? Can you ping the LAN IP? Your WAN IP from the LAN? Your WAN's default gateway from LAN? IP's and/or DNS names on the Internet?

It fails pretty much when it wants to, but when it does, I can ping the internally on the LAN no prob, the DNs server is my modem (always has been like that), next time it happens I will try pinging my wan IP to see, I am unsure if that works.

Update: When it drops I cannot ping my external IP and it does take over 30 seconds to connect to the m0n0wall admin interface. However, once I connect to the admin interface and check my interfaces, all is right again. the m0n0wall does respond to pings @ less than 1ms despite the inital connection lag.