Need to debug an occasional network freeze

Question

Since recently, I have been having a strange problem with my network connection.
Setup:
Desktop with a static IP and well qualified hostname. Here are some configs:
~> cat /etc/hosts
127.0.0.1 arch.physics.indiana.edu localhost.localdomain localhost arch
xxx.xx.xxx.xx arch.physics.indiana.edu arch
~> cat /etc/resolv.conf
# /etc/resolv.conf
nameserver 129.79.1.1
nameserver 129.79.5.10
search indiana.edu
~> cat /etc/rc.conf | grep -i -e hostname -e gateway -e eth0 -e daemons
# HOSTNAME: Hostname of machine. Should also be put in /etc/hosts
HOSTNAME="arch"
# DHCP: Set your interface to "dhcp" (eth0="dhcp")
eth0="eth0 xxx.xx.xxx.xx netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 129.79.159.255"
INTERFACES=(eth0)
gateway="default gw 129.79.159.254"
ROUTES=(gateway)
# DAEMONS
# Daemons to start at boot-up (in this order)
DAEMONS=(syslog-ng irqbalance hal microcode alsa iptables fcrond network sshd postfix ntpd cups smartd !fam)
Problem:
Occasionally (once per several weeks), the network connection freezes: I can't ping other hosts both on the LAN and internet, nor can I ping my box. This happens sporadically and gives no error in dmesg/everything.log. Restarting network helped so far.
Currently, I have a cron job, which does /etc/rc.d/network restart, when pings of several hosts fail, but I would like to be able to debug this somehow.
Does anyone have an advice what I should look at, when the above problem occurs again?
TIA
Last edited by Leonid.I (2010-12-16 21:58:25)

Answer 1

Run ifconfig to make sure interface is up and see if there are any errors or collisions. Do arping to see if you can ping over ethernet. My guess is it's an issue with the driver.