have to ping gateway to "kickstart" net connection and routing
 

Hello. I have a network/route problem that's really got me stumped. I have a Gentoo box that I've recently moved into a co-lo. When I boot the machine, the network connection is up and functional. However, when I use the '/etc/init.d/net.eth0 restart' option, the routing fails and I can't connect to the outside world.

However, after I do that, I can ping the gateway...it fails maybe 15-40 times...but then the connection comes up and route will print the routing table.

So, any ideas why would it take pinging the gateway to "jumpstart" the connection?

I can post any information you may need...just let me know what is helpful. So far, it seems like the kernel is configured properly and there aren't mistakes in the network config scripts...though one never knows apparently. ;-)

Thanks!

bp