Hardware and IP questions

Dave Wreski (dave@nic.com)
Mon, 4 Aug 1997 00:47:00 -0400 (EDT)

Hi all. I've succeeded in getting the routing set up on my firewall with
three interfaces. I've now hooked my router, an Ascend P130, to one of
the interfaces, and configured the IP for it.

I had a few questions I hoped someone could help me figure out.

1. ping from the fw to the ascend various significantly, despite the fact
they are connected via a crossover cable (that came with the router):

64 bytes from 38.162.122.1: icmp_seq=29 ttl=255 time=5.9 ms
64 bytes from 38.162.122.1: icmp_seq=30 ttl=255 time=1.5 ms
64 bytes from 38.162.122.1: icmp_seq=31 ttl=255 time=1.5 ms
64 bytes from 38.162.122.1: icmp_seq=32 ttl=255 time=1.5 ms

then it will go to 6.4ms, back to 1.5, about every ten sequences.. What
is the reason for that? Is it something in the router, or something I
should investigate? 1.5ms is pretty bad to begin with, seeing how the
boxes are directly connected..

2. Once I configured the IP address for the router thru its serial port,
I connected the crossover cable. I then tried to ping the box from my
firewall, and ping never responded. I probably could have brought the
interface down and up again, but I'm wondering why this happened.

In other words, did the networking code realize there wasn't a link, and
simply stop trying forever? Is this an IP thing?

Thanks,
Dave Wreski