Isolated disconnection

[Michael Hui]

Hi,

I have a MIPS box that runs a linux 2.0.33 kernel. This box apparently uses
a modified version of tulip.c version 0.79, (modified to work with the box,
I guess).

I ran into a strange problem and I would like to know if anyone have
experienced it before. I'm not exactly sure if it is the kernel or the
driver.

I'm running some tests between the MIPS box and a PC running RH6.0. After
running the test for a while (15 minutes or longer), these two machines stop
talking to each other. However, I can connect to either one of these
machines from another machine on the network. When I do a ping from the PC
to the MIPS box, I saw that the packet goes to the MIPS box and then a reply
gets sent to the PC. However, the PC doesn't see it.

My application sets up some IP aliases on the MIPS box. If I bring any of
the aliases down, the connection between these two machines resumes. Also,
when this happens, I always see a connection in the SYNC_RECV state on the
MIPS box using netstat.

Anyone seen this before or have any idea how I can solve this problem ?

Thanks.

Mike