Hi all,

I'm experiencing a rather strange problem. I just downloaded Ubuntu 6.06 (I know, it's not the latest version) and I've left it on for about...2-3 days in live cd mode. Today when I go on a windows box, I noticed the internet was down so I tried to ping the router. It was locked up. I had to power cycle it to bring it back up. This has happened before with other distro of Linux. Most recently I had a VM running SUSE 10. When I was done with SUSE each night, I would have to pause the VM just so it wouldn't lock the router.

The router I'm using is a Netgear WGR614v6. The same has happened on my older Linksys BEFW11S4. This leads me to believe that it's some setting on Linux that I have to tweak in order to not have this happening. I checked the IP on Ubuntu and there's no conflict with other boxes.

Can anyone point me to the right direction?

Thanks

Nope. Your router could care less what OS its clients are. The whole DHCP offering and routing NAT issue is independent of the OS. Your router will behave the same with linux, mac, windows, handheld, etc. Home routers do screw up easily, there is a reason a true router can be in the thousands of dollars and your home version is $50.

I can't suggest what the problem is with your router, but trying to pass it off the the OSes behind it makes no sense. Particularly when you say things like, If there were a problem between the router and the client, it wouldn't take 2-3 days to show it. The client would immediately fail to get an address from the router.

Peace,
JimBass

I don't know what to make of it. I experienced the same thing when I was using Mandrake 10.1, SUSE 10 and now Ubuntu. I didn't see this happening when I was using Windows. Could it be a driver issue that...I don't know...sends bad packets or what not? As improbable as it might sound, I can't explain why I only see this when I leave a linux distro on for a period of time, when all else stay the same.

Nope. If you send bad packets to the router it should just drop them. Besides that, the wired network card drivers very rarely have problems in linux.

Peace,
JimBass

hmm...so no idea what it could be? I really want to use it but having to power cycle my router every few days is not practical...

So your setup is: [modem]-[router]-[computer]?

Is there anything else at all connected to your router?

How long is DHCP IP lease from your ISP? Maybe router is having problem getting a new WAN IP.

When the router "locks up" are you able to access the router itself or is it just your connection to internet is down? Next time it locks up try logging into router and do a release/renew of the DHCP to your ISP.

I agree with JimBass, I don't think it's the OS.

Yes, that's my setup

Yes, I have a few computers connected to it (both wired and wireless), as well a voip box, a Wii and very occassionally a PDA.

I'm not sure...I tried a quick google search but didn't find anything. I'm not familiar of how this would cause what I'm seeing. Could you explain it?

I tried pinging the router but I couldn't get a reply so I wouldn't be able to log into the router.

Yeah...that's what I thought the first time too. I didn't try running a VM until fairly recently and before that, it must've been a few years ago since I've tried. I totally forgot I had this problem before so when I experienced it with the VM, I kept thinking it was the router's fault. However, I started pausing the VM each night and it seems to be gone.

Would setting static ip's help? Or turning off DHCP?

My train of thought about the router was perhaps the LAN side was still working but the WAN side was going down while the router tried to update its DHCP with your ISP.

As for setting the WAN IP to static, you have to contact your ISP.

At this point you think it might be the VM? How does the VM get an IP, dhcp also? Been ages since I tinkered with VMware, how does it resolve IP so it doesn't conflict with the host system?

Actually the VM was not turned off when Ubuntu was up. I believe VMware is acting as a router (for a lack or proper term) so that to the VM it's no different from a physical computer.

If your suspicion is correct, how would I get around this problem? It could very well be the solution to my problem since it took a few days for the router to lock up. It might have just happened at the right time to cause it to happen.

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50591

I know mine isn't a mac and it's a different router. But it seems like others do see similar sort of things.

and http://groups.google.ca/group/micros...&rnum=3&hl=en#

Again, I know it's a different operating system and under differe circumstances. Is there such a setting in linux where I can limit the number of connections?

In the meantime, I've set up a cron job to ping the router and google every minute just to see when the router fails.

Anyone has any idea on the matter?

I've changed ubuntu to use static IP. Let's see how it pans out.

I did a Google search on this router and found a number of user reviews that this model tends to lock up:
http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop...ProductID=2046

Maybe you can check if there is a firmware update.
Also, does it get very warm? I'm thinking that heat may be an issue being that it is a gigabit router and a netgear switch I had got pretty warm. Make sure it has enough space to dissipate heat.

Thanks for the link. But isn't the posts on FVX538 and not the WGR614v6 that I have? I'm not sure about the heat but that's a good point. I'll check when I get home. Could it be that since I have another computer plugged in, the load gets higher and it generated more heat? I just found it strange that it didn't lock up for months since I bought the router and all of a sudden it locks up with Ubuntu plugged in.

On a related note, I wasn't there to see it myself but I was told that there was a message that popped up on XP that says there's a conflict with ip address last night. I've since set the XP box and Ubuntu to use static ip. I believe the only device that's using the router that doesn't have a static ip right now is the voip box.

I picked the wrong one. I used the terms: "Netgear WGR614v6 lockup" and got 10 pages of results. I remembered finding that something like this was a problem for a previous post. That's how I though to look for it. Feel free to double check for yourself. There was one post that mentioned something about the problem occurring when using UPnP. If that is the case, this is a feature that you shouldn't use anyway. It is unsecure. It allows apps to open up a port on your router without your consent.