I hate computers

[curgoth]

Here is my sad situation.

I have four machines in the back room.

Velvet, the old linux server.
Phoenix, the new linux server.
Gir, my windows desktop.
Shiny, Lizard's laptop.

Gir and Shiny can talk to each other with no trouble. Velvet and Phoenix can talk to each other with no trouble. Phoenix can connect to Gir with no trouble. But when Gir or Shiny connect to Phoenix, they are fine for a little while, but if we do anythign intensive like playing mp3s off of samba shares on Phoenix, or tranferring large files, Phoenix cuts them off. Completely. Not just samba shares - all TCP/IP connections (ssh, etc.) are cut off, and Phoenix won't talk to those boxes for a minute or so after they get cut off. This means that the server I bought to hold large amounts of data won't share that data with my windows machines. No idea why. I tried upgrading to a new gigabit switch (phoenix and gir have gigabit cards), and I don't think it's network cabling, since the window -> velvet connections and the velvet <-> phoenix connections are solid (stay connected for weeks, etc.)

I've checked the process monitor on Gir, and I'm not seeing a huge spike in CPU usage or network usage before the cut offs. I played around with Samba settings to make sure Phoenix, not one of the windows machines, is the master browser for the workgroup.

I'm running out of ideas, here. Anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

Comments

[djinnthespazz.livejournal.com]

Don't look at me, dude.
I've got my own problems with electronics:
http://djinnthespazz.livejournal.com/991163.html

Good luck!

Me, I just keep hammering at the same damn things until something works. Or doesn't. Stymied again.

[nixtress.livejournal.com]

i'm sorry i don't have an answer for you, but i blame windows. i fucking hate windows. damned hated necessity.

[northbard.livejournal.com]

I'm not that up on such matters, but it looks to me like a bandwidth control mechanism. Do you know if you maybe instituted any such measures by accident. It really sounds like it's throttling the connection to minimize 'abuse'

[the-doughboy.livejournal.com]

Check your Firewall, I had an insane amount of issues getting my Xbox to talk to my computer and there is a little check box on the firewall about disable multicast packets.
Multicast packets are good from the sounds of it

Another option would be to set one of the servers up as an NT 4 domain controller instead of a browser, it would make the windows computers happier.

[curgoth]

nothing about mutlicast in my hardware firewall, or the windows settings. I don't *think* there's a firewall on the linux box...