Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!ames!umd5!hans
From: hans@umd5.umd.edu (Hans Breitenlohner)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Proteon's behaviour
Message-ID: <2773@umd5.umd.edu>
Date: 25 May 88 19:37:47 GMT
References: <880519-134446-6569@Xerox>
Reply-To: hans@umd5 (Hans Breitenlohner)
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Lines: 20

In article <880519-134446-6569@Xerox> Burrell.osbunorth@Xerox.COM, castillo.osbunorth@Xerox.COM writes:
>
>We have noticed some behaviour which seems to be a normal operation on the
>gateway, but that it is very annoying.
>It seems that the Proteon does some self testing of both of its Ethernet
>interfaces and other internal hardware by sending small trash packets to itself
>every so often through both interfaces.
>The frequency of such tests is often enough that it is noticibly consuming
>precious bandwidth already at a premium in our backbone which is carrying a lot
>of XNS traffic.
>

Two packets are sent out every 3.5 to 4 seconds.  While this can be annoying
in many respects, it is hard to see how this could consume much bandwidth.

You can order the software with this feature ("maintenance feature") disabled,
on a per interface basis.  
You should know that, if you do so, you lose the ability of the gateway to
determine if the attached ethernet works.  As a result it may RIP-advertise
reachability of attached subnets when they are actually down.