Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!agate!ucbvax!ldc.lu.se!Jan.Engvald
From: Jan.Engvald@ldc.lu.se (Jan Engvald LDC)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc
Subject: Re: Intermittent Novell+BYU+PD+CUTCP hangups
Message-ID: <F10EC9D79FDF007E31@gemini.ldc.lu.se>
Date: 9 Dec 90 14:16:00 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 52

>   >Intermittently, a workstation will loose touch with the server and give
>   >the good ole  IGNORE, RETRY, ABORT message.  Retrying does not help.
> 
>   I know that bug!!!  We're having exactly the same problems here.  They
>   started happening in August, about the time we started widespread use
>   of the packet drivers.
> 
>Kelly McDonald, the author of the BYU Packet driver shell says:
> 
>   The problem:
>      Idle workstations logged into Novell servers periodically come
>   up with an error message stating that they have lost a connection
>   to their logged in file server and their connection is no longer
>   valid.
> 
>   The cause:
>      other stations (besides the idle one) that is running the packet
>   driver shell sometimes incorrectly respond to the "watchdog" packet
>   sent out to the idle station from the server to see if it is still
>   alive. The incorrect response causes the server to close the
>   connection to the idle station.  When the user of the idle station
>   tries to access the server again, the error message is generated.
>   (As far as we can tell, this only occurs with Netware 286 or
>   earlier servers.)

Anybody that has more details on the above proposed cause?

Reading between the lines I get the impression that the bad station sends
a response to the server with a from address that is not its own. Is it
the Ethernet address or the IPX address or both?

We have been plauged by this aborted communication ever since June. We have
been running packet drivers with the BYU driver for several years, so it
is hard to believe that any of those is the cause. Late May, however,
we got the Novell 3.01 rev A shells, and I would guess that they have
something to do with the error. The rev D of NETx does not seem to help
for this error. I have seen rumors on a rev B of 3.01 IPX, it might help.
Is there any anonymous FTP server with IPX 3.1 rev B?

If a new IPX does not help and the problem really is wrong from address,
it is easy as a temporary fix to do a special packet driver version to
force correct from address for a novell packet.
                                             
Jan Engvald, Lund University Computing Center
________________________________________________________________________
   Address: Box 783                E-mail: Jan.Engvald@ldc.lu.se
            S-220 07 LUND     Earn/Bitnet: xjeldc@seldc52
            SWEDEN           (Span/Hepnet: Sweden::Gemini::xjeldc)
    Office: Soelvegatan 18         VAXPSI: psi%2403732202020::xjeldc
 Telephone: +46 46 107458          (X.400: C=se; A=TeDe; P=Sunet; O=lu;
   Telefax: +46 46 138225                  OU=ldc; S=Engvald; G=Jan)
     Telex: 33533 LUNIVER S