I have an annoying problem with a server continually dropping off the network in RHEL 5. ifconfig says that the NIC still has an IP address and traffic still seems to be received but it cant be pinged and cant ping out, no internet access etc.

The problem can be fixed by de-activating and re-activating the network interface. This then will just drop off again after 5-20 minutes. It doesn't even stay on long enough to be able to get updates etc from the rhn. I have upgraded the server bios, and have compiled and replaced the e1000e drivers with the latest set from intel. Ethtool reports that the NIC is using the latest release.

Has anyone any ideas what could be causing this behaviour ? I have installed vista on this system as a check and the NIC was stable and did not experience these drop outs so it would seem that it is specific to linux. The machine has also has a live ubuntu distro loaded and the same problems occurred so it would seem its not specific to RHEL.

Thanks for any ideas.

I've had some of our virtual server (on VmWare) loose connectivity, but never had the time to debug it. But one thing to check might be you network switch ("ethtool eth0" or something) and check if the ouput from there is as expected?

Output from ethtool seems fine, link is up and the correct driver module has been loaded of the correct version. I cant seem to see any difference between when the networks on or when its dropped off.

So things like "Speed" and "Duplex" seems ok? Then I'm out of ideas, really. :/
But please report back here when you find the answer, as I'm interested in what's causing this.

Hey dhart1978 - were you able to resolve your issue? I'm experiencing the exact same problem with an intel NIC on a supermicro motherboard. I'm interested to know if you found a solution.