Aric Gregson wrote:
> --On December 4, 2009 7:35:57 AM -0500 James Carlson
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Any chance you have a Broadcom "Smart Load Balancing" system somewhere
>> on your network? It's well-known for a bug that poisons other system's
>> ARP caches, and that could reasonably cause the symptoms you're
>> describing.
>
> Thanks very much I will inquire about this.
>
> Is there a work-around if such a system is on our network? A way to
> completely clear the ARP caches or something?
There's supposed to be a patch available from Broadcom that fixes the
problem, if that's what you're running into. Personally, if I ran into
a problem like that, I'd defenestrate the device.
> I very much doubt that they will do anything about it if I am the only
> computer out of thousands that has a problem.
If you have an active attacker on your network throwing out bogus ARP
messages and interfering with communications (which is exactly what that
device represents), then there's not much you can do. It may be
possible to hack the system so that it "ignores" the conflicts ("set
arp:arp_no_defense = 1" in /etc/system may do it), but then you're just
a sitting duck. You've stifled the symptom alone.
There's hope, though, that you're experiencing some other problem.
Network traces might help identify the issue.
--
James Carlson 42.703N 71.076W <[email protected]>
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