UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

We have 3 Unix servers all running SVR4 Unix 1.4. I have no problems copying files to and from 2 of the servers using either the rcp command or ftp but when i come to transfer large files to the third server the copy gives up part way through and crashes this server. Copying smaller files using RCP or ftp is fine, the problem is just with larger files. The size of file that is allowed to copy varies, one time i got a file over over 100mb but then later the copy process failed trying to copy a 10mb file.

Any ideas greatly appreciated.

What errors do you see from the crash? That would help to identify why the server is encountering problems...

There are no messages the server just freezes. Do you think there may be some files i can look in to see if it catured the error when the system crashed ?

Is the copy program that is stalling or the network transfer that is stalling?

At the remote host where the file is being transferred, please do a system call tracer, that will give some insight on what exactly is the problem.

Hm... Could you post the output of a few commands?

uname -a
df -lk
tail /var/adm/messages
tail /var/log/syslog

Feel free to change the name information if you're not comfortable with posting that publicly. I'm curious about the type of machine -- I haven't seen a pure SysVR4 machine in quite a while, and some of the older machines and OSs have some odd quirks.

Thanks.

Thanks for your help. I managed to find info in some logs files i found.

In a file called confile a message appears saying " Warning ethernet unit 0 has a transceiver problem".

In a file called kurld.log it says UNITSEL failed on /dev/i596, BAD kurl received message flags = 1 ctl_len=14 data_len = -1
08 00 0b 06 14 ad cd ab ff ff ff ....

I am not an expert in this field but i get the feeling that all the problems could be due to a bad network card that has intermittant problems. I have no problems logging onto the server through the network but it could be that when i send a large file the network card cannot cope, does this sound possible ? Do you know what the KURL is in Unix terms?

Thanks

I think you've found your problem. I'd replace the network cable and move to another network port before I replaced the network port itself.

I don't see much that refers to kurl. I wonder if it's an embedded SysV, such as Coherent? I never did see that 'uname -a' output.