UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Hello All,

I wonder if you can help me...

Let me give you some set-up details before I ask you the question.

I have Ultra-60 at home with Solaris 9 and recommended patch cluster installed. The machine is connected to a Linksys WAG54G ADSL router/modem through RJ45 ethernet cable. The router also has windows XP machine connected through RJ45 ethernet cable. I also have another windows XP machine that connects to the router over wireless connection.

I have opened up required ports on the router/port forwarding so that I can access the services remotely. I was first using default ports for http and ssh, but have now changed them to different ports - to be a bit more secure.

I have created a domain name through dyndns.org.

I have ssh running on the solaris 9 machine and has all the remote commands (rlogin, rsh, telnet) commented out in the /etc/inetd.conf and hence are not running on the machine.

I have a UK ADSL servise provider called Pipex.

Now lets get to the problem:

The whole purpose of the above set-up is that I want to access sun machine from work. The whole set-up works perfectly well - for a little while and then something strange happens. At work, when I connect to the sun machine, everything works fine and when I leave the session idle for 15-20 minutes (could be less time), the connection drops and then I can not connect to the machine for good couple of hours. When I say connection drops, I do not mean that system displays a logout message or something - There is no response from the server - pressing of return key does not do anything and eventually I get a message on windows pop up that connection is disconnected. If I try to retry, the client tries for a while and then says that connection timed out. Same thing happens if I use the IP address - I use the right IP address as someone at home checks the router to confirms the correct IP address. This eliminates problem with domain name.

I have tried everything and can not work out what is causing this problem - the machine has all the 9_recommended patches. To narrow the problem down, I set up apache server on the sun machine. Today, when the connection dropped, I tried to connecting to the apache server and it failed - 'page can not be displayed' message on the internet explorer. However, after couple of minutes, I managed to get to the website but still can not get login prompt through ssh client.

What does that mean? Does it mean that server is playing up, or is it the sshd or is there any time out option in solaris 9... the strange thing is that I can access the web page - though it was not accessible at start when connection to ssh dropped out.

Could it be the router? The linksys do not come with a rule based firewall... so there is nothing that states that disconnects after some inactivity. The port forwarding is working as I do get to login to the server and to the web server. It can not be changing the default port numbers as the problem was there when there were standard ports being used.

It is not the link at my office as my friend, in a different company gets the same problem on my machine - connects to it and after some in-activity, the connection drops and then he can not login for a long time.

It can not be the ADSL link as people at home can use the internet without any problem and they can access the sun machine locally.

It can not be the windows machines connected to the router as problem is there when windows machines are switched off - don't know if windows would cause this, but just wanted to eliminate anything that I could think of.

One strange think that I did see yesterday was that, when I managed to login the last command showed that I was logged in throughout the time - the time when I could not logged in . The error message in the /var/adm/messages stated something like socket error and connection reset by peer or something - can not give you exact message right now as I can not login to the machine. The time on the message was couple of couple of minutes before I managed to login again and that time was the same as the time showed in last command is my logout time.

Does anyone know what is causing all this problem? Any pointers or help will be appreciated. If there is any place else that you think I can get the answer, please kindly let me know.

Many thanks for your time and help.

I have also had this problem. However, I have narrowed it down to a problem with my router/modem - its just a piece of crap. Perhaps this could be your problem, or maybe something with your system, I don't know...

Thanks...

It is the router... I am now working out whether to throw it away or use it as a hub

Thanks and regards
Ahmerin