tcp connections freezing

Brian Pape (bpape@ezl.com)
Sun, 2 Jun 1996 10:31:48 -0500 (CDT)

I'm having a problem where virtually any program will freeze when it tries
to receive or send over 1k (1024 bytes) of data. If I try to ftp to (or
from) the machine, I'll get 1k transferred and the ftp will die. Same
thing with an irc client, lynx, etc... I haven't been able to get a tcp
dump program on the machine yet, but in each case, if only a small amount
of data is transferred at once (again, it seems that 1024 bytes is the
magic number), things are fine. If the packet size exceeds that, I only
get 1024 bytes, then the connection freezes. The mtu on my ethernet (3com
3c509) was 1500, and I found (after a lot of frustration), that changing
it to 1000 `solves' the problem. I don't know what is really _causing_
the problem though. I've had this problem running kernels from 1.3.74
(where it first started) to 1.99.6, although downgrading to 1.3.57 didn't
fix it (although it worked with that kernel in the first place).

Brian Pape
bpape@ezl.com
bpape@bill.gates.will.turn.the.internet.into.a.total.wasteland.org