Re: [gentoo-user] Strange network behaviour: NIC goes down, DHCP lease renewal fails

[Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@gmail.com>]

On Thu, 5 Mar 2015 13:33:23 -0500
Todd Goodman <tsg@bonedaddy.net> wrote:

> * Marc Joliet <marcec@gmx.de> [150305 04:47]:
> [..SNIP..]
> > 1.) The NIC is brought up (some built-in Intel model).
> > 
> > 2.) A DHCP client configures it.
> > 
> > 3.) The network connection is lost at some point (the amount of
> > time this takes varies, but it can be as little as 20 minutes).
> > 
> > 4.) Eventually the lease runs out and the DHCP client tries to
> > renew it, but gets no response.  Sometimes, after many hours (at
> > least 6), it will get a DHCPACK, but that's it.  One of our
> > sysadmins says that not only does the DHCP server never see the
> > packets, but the managed switch that the PC is directly attached to
> > *also* never does (again, except for when the occasional DHCPACK
> > comes).
> > 
> > 4.) Restart the network device.  A reboot is not required, but it
> > is necessary to terminate the DHCP client.  After that everything
> > works again.
> > 
> > 5.) GOTO 3.
> [..SNIP..]
> 
> Is this a WiFi NIC?
> 
> Is it possible the device is powering down?
> 
> I've had lots of problems with WiFi devices powering down (both driver
> issues as well as just trying to disable the default setting of
> powering down.)


+1

I've seen similar things many times myself (but nevr on Intel network
kit so far)

A lot of reading and Googling usually leads to the solution:

- firmware upgrade for the hardware
- use the correct driver (this is often non-obvious)
- try the in-kernel driver vs any out-of-tree vendor driver
- apply driver parameters designed to work around buggy hardware (this
  often involves (much reading)

Alan