[vox-tech] Network Troubleshooting (trouble with ping, but not with pong)

[Karalius, Joseph]

I'm building a Debian workstation here at work and am having trouble
ping-ing out to the network.  It's a Dell Optiplex GX270 with integrated
gigE.  The machine ran for the first few months on WinXP and saw the network
fine, so I'm pretty sure the hardware is still functional.  I ran the Debian
netinstall and then planned to apt-get packages from a local Debian mirror
here.  The network configuration step failed when looking for the DHCP
server.  I went ahead with the rest of the install, rebooted, and then
assigned an arbitrary IP that was unique to the network, and ifconfig-ed and
route-d the settings identical to another Debian box I built a few months
back.  After /etc/networking restart I can ping from that machine to itself
via the loopback @ 127.0.0.1 and to itself via the IP I assigned.  I cannot
ping from that machine to the DHCP server or anywhere else.

I tried from the other Debian workstation and can ping to itself, to the new
box using the IP as well as the hostname, and to the DHCP server.  I've
included some of the output from those commands at the bottom.

I booted up Knoppix on the problematic machine and it couldn't configure the
network either, I though that would work for sure.

Where else should I check?  Is ping-ing the loopback enough of a diagnostic
for the function of the NIC?  How can I check the physical connection of the
port.  I've connected it to two different ports with two different cables,
all of which are known to work (I can ping to the machine, but not from)

Any other ideas?

Joey

##These are pings from the working Debian box to the problem box

1) using arbitrary IP
# ping -c 5 xxx.xxx.xxx.240
PING xxx.xxx.xxx.240 (xxx.xxx.xxx.240) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from xxx.xxx.xxx.240: icmp_seq=1 ttl=128 time=0.456 ms
64 bytes from xxx.xxx.xxx.240: icmp_seq=2 ttl=128 time=0.440 ms
64 bytes from xxx.xxx.xxx.240: icmp_seq=3 ttl=128 time=0.410 ms
64 bytes from xxx.xxx.xxx.240: icmp_seq=4 ttl=128 time=0.344 ms
64 bytes from xxx.xxx.xxx.240: icmp_seq=5 ttl=128 time=0.383 ms

--- xxx.xxx.xxx.240 ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4044ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.344/0.406/0.456/0.045 ms

2) using hostname
# ping -c 5 mmag
PING mmag.xxx.com (xxx.xxx.xxx.240) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from mmag.xxx.com (xxx.xxx.xxx.240): icmp_seq=1 ttl=128 time=0.507
ms
64 bytes from mmag.xxx.com (xxx.xxx.xxx.240): icmp_seq=2 ttl=128 time=0.453
ms
64 bytes from mmag.xxx.com (xxx.xxx.xxx.240): icmp_seq=3 ttl=128 time=0.504
ms
64 bytes from mmag.xxx.com (xxx.xxx.xxx.240): icmp_seq=4 ttl=128 time=0.404
ms
64 bytes from mmag.xxx.com (xxx.xxx.xxx.240): icmp_seq=5 ttl=128 time=0.372
ms

--- mmag.xxx.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4119ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.372/0.448/0.507/0.053 ms

#) to DHCP server
# ping -c 5 xxx.xxx.xxx.2
PING xxx.xxx.xxx.2 (xxx.xxx.xxx.2) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from xxx.xxx.xxx.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=30 time=2.17 ms
64 bytes from xxx.xxx.xxx.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=30 time=2.17 ms
64 bytes from xxx.xxx.xxx.2: icmp_seq=3 ttl=30 time=2.19 ms
64 bytes from xxx.xxx.xxx.2: icmp_seq=4 ttl=30 time=3.08 ms
64 bytes from xxx.xxx.xxx.2: icmp_seq=5 ttl=30 time=2.21 ms

--- xxx.xxx.xxx.2 ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 received, 0% packet loss, time 4084ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 2.175/2.369/3.088/0.362 ms

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joseph Karalius
Research Assistant II - Bioinformatics
Molecular Markers and Applied Genomics
Seminis Vegetable Seeds, Inc.
37437 State Highway 16
Woodland, CA 95695-9353
office: 530-669-6131 lab: 530-669-6290
joseph.karalius(a)seminis dot com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~