[clue-tech] ethernet link down takes interface down??

[Jim Ockers]

Hi everyone,

I'm chasing a ghost in the machine and thought I'd ask
the group for help.  Has anyone ever heard of a case where un-
plugging the ethernet cable causes the interface itself to go
down?  Linux kernel 2.4.

That is, when the ethernet link state goes down, the interface
itself also goes down.  The kernel is 2.4.22 stock, driver is 
3c59x.o also stock in the kernel, and hardware is 3c905[bc]-tx.
The general OS environment is mostly Red Hat 7.2.

What also seems to happen is that we have eth0 which gets an IP
address via DHCP, and eth0:0 which is a static IP address.  The
eth0:0 address disappears sometimes when eth0 is configured with
dhcpcd, and doesn't come back when eth0 is configured.

Any ideas?  Has anyone seen this before, where disconnecting a
network cable causes the interface to go down, with subinterfaces,
and refuses to come back until the system is rebooted?

I googled but didn't really find anything.  Here are some 
questions I can anticipate you asking:

Q1. Are we using ifplugd?
A1. No, ifplugd is nowhere on the filesystem.

Q2. What in your software uses MII or SIOCETHTOOL?
A2. We use MII only on eth1, not eth0, to bring up that interface
if there is a link.  That daemon doesn't ever do anything to eth0.

Q3. What happens to eth0 at startup if a DHCP server doesn't respond?
A3. The interface is configured with a static IP address after a
short timeout.

Q4. dhcpcd or dhclient?
A4. dhcpcd-1.3.18pl8

Thanks,
Jim

-- 
Jim Ockers, P.Eng. (ockers at ockers.net)
Contact info: please see http://www.ockers.net/
_______________________________________________
CLUE-tech mailing list
CLUE-tech at cluedenver.org
http://cluedenver.org/mailman/listinfo/clue-tech