netgear router locks up ONLY when downloading fedora??????????????????

[Joe(theWordy)Philbrook]

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netgear router locks up ONLY when downloading fedora??????????????????

Well not quite true, there appear to be 2 circumstances under which this
happens. 

1) a rare power fluctuation.
2) common if trying to download cd sized iso's from overloaded sites.
3) there haven't been any other times when this has happened.

- -see the detailed narrative below-

Questions:
1) What is it about downloading large files from overloaded sites that 
   can cause an otherwise stable netgear RP614 10/100 router to lock up?
2) Can I prevent it? 

3) is there a RELIABLE method of downloading such large files that will
   ALWAYS resume an interrupted download rather than downloading the same
   bytes over again???

I can't figure this out. But actually I've had this router as long as
I've had a cable modem. And except for when trying to download LARGE iso
images from VERY busy sites, (such as any source of fedora shortly after
a core release) the only other time I've seen this is sometimes after a
local power fluctuation (when the lights dimmed but the clocks didn't
forget what time it was). The first time that happened I called my cable
tech help, and was eventually told to unplug the router, for a couple
seconds, and then reboot (he was a windows guy of course) I took this to
mean cold start the router and then ifdown eth0, ifup eth0. And this
worked like a charm. Fortunately such power fluctuations are rare in my
neighborhood, so are not a problem.

But the other time this happens is MUCH more annoying.

That is when trying to download a linux distro. I remember having
similar problems ( though not as severe ) when I downloaded mdk 9.1. and
when I got FC1. In both of those cases, it was more than a month after
release so the download volume may have been less than was the case when I
just spent days, getting the FC2 iso files...

When I go to (pick any eastern US fedora mirror) And try to get all the
binary iso's, Some of the sites seam faster than others. so even with 
broadband, mozilla may estimate around 4 hours to get one iso. No problem
start the downloads and go to bed. Get up in the morning to find that I 
got disk1 & disk4, downloads for disk2 & disk3 were stuck at around
400MB each. Ping failed to reach my email provider, so I reset the
router, and did the ifdown/ifup sequence, ping now worked. But of course
the downloads didn't resume. The next attempt bagged disk2 before another
router lockup murdered about 500MB of disk3. Spent the day trying to get
the remaining iso. Trying one mirror after another. Each time somewhere
between 1/2 and 4/5 of the way through... the router locks up. (That is,
if the site yielded a faster download, the lock-up happened sooner, and
a slower download stayed running longer. But the result was the same, an
incomplete download of the disk3 iso...)
The next day I remembered that when I used to use konqueror back in my
dial-up days (may they never come again) konqueror used to sometimes
resume downloading an incomplete file. So I spent another day getting
disk3. I don't know what I was doing wrong, konqueror kept starting over
just like mozilla had. But eventually I tried:
http://mirror.hiwaay.net/redhat/fedora/linux/core/2/i386/iso/
And got a connection that kept slowing down to a crawl but never quite
gave up. My lady made me go to the store(s) with her, and when I came
back it was still chugging away. Though konqueror's estimate of the
remaining time kept changing from about 30 min to as much as 3 more
hours and back... I went to bed. This morning (FINALLY) I've got the last
iso...  But I don't know why it was so difficult. I don't even
have a clue where to look it up...

Any help, advice, heck even *informative* flames, would be welcome. I'd
gladly RT(specified)FM if someone would at least point me at the right book.

Thank you very much.

- -- 
|      ?           ?		
|			
|        -=-   -=-	 I'm NOT clueless...    	
|        <?>   <?>    	But I just don't know.  	
|            ^          Joe (theWordy) Philbrook           
|           ---  	     J(tWdy)P
|			  <jtwdyp(a)ttlc.net&gt; 
|      ?           ?		
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[Alexander Dalloz]

Am Sa, den 22.05.2004 schrieb Joe(theWordy)Philbrook um 13:38:

>  3) is there a RELIABLE method of downloading such large files that
> will
>     ALWAYS resume an interrupted download rather than downloading the same
>     bytes over again??? 
man wget --> -c | --continue

As long as the the side (HTTP, FTP) supports resuming, wget will
continue the previously interrupted download.

Alexander

P.S. Your keyboard is broken as the questionmark key "echoes". Or is it
you?

"Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind." (Terry
Pratchett in "Reaper Man")


-- 
Alexander Dalloz | Enger, Germany | GPG key 1024D/ED695653 1999-07-13
Fedora GNU/Linux Core 1 (Yarrow) on Athlon CPU kernel 2.4.22-1.2188.nptl
Sirendipity 14:04:54 up 9 days, 11:49, load average: 0.30, 0.35, 0.16 
                   [ Γνωθι σ'αυτον - gnothi seauton ]
             my life is a planetarium - and you are the stars

[Joe(theWordy)Philbrook]

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It would appear that on May 22, Alexander Dalloz did say:

>  Am Sa, den 22.05.2004 schrieb Joe(theWordy)Philbrook um 13:38:
>  
>  > 3) is there a RELIABLE method of downloading such large files that will
>  >    ALWAYS resume an interrupted download rather than downloading the same
>  >    bytes over again???
>  
>  man wget --> -c | --continue
>  
>  As long as the the side (HTTP, FTP) supports resuming, wget will
>  continue the previously interrupted download.
>  
>  Alexander
>  
>  P.S. Your keyboard is broken as the questionmark key "echoes". Or is it
>  you?
>  
>  "Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind." (Terry
>  Pratchett in "Reaper Man") 

Thanks Alexander.

Hmmmnn I just might get to like this wget...

As far as the broken ??????????????? key on my keyboard,  it just
refuses to override my manual input. So I guess I'd go with the
Reaper Man theory... (Who ever said I was sane anyway???)

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|   ---   ___
|   <0>   <->	   Joe (theWordy) Philbrook
|	^		J(tWdy)P
|    ~\___/~	     <&lt;jtwdyp(a)ttlc.net&gt;&gt;
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Joe(theWordy)Philbrook wrote:

> 3) is there a RELIABLE method of downloading such large files that
> will
>    ALWAYS resume an interrupted download rather than downloading the same
>    bytes over again???
>  

$ wget -c --passive-ftp ftp://sld.tld/bla.iso


+-+-+-+-+-
$ man wget

-c
--continue
Continue getting a partially-downloaded file.  This is useful when
you want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of
Wget, or by another program.
+-+-+-+-+-


works great.

-- 
shrek-m

[Joe(theWordy)Philbrook]

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It would appear that on May 22, shrek-m(a)gmx.de did say:

>  Joe(theWordy)Philbrook wrote:
>  
>  > 3) is there a RELIABLE method of downloading such large files that will
>  >   ALWAYS resume an interrupted download rather than downloading the same
>  >   bytes over again???
>  > 
>  
>  
>  $ wget -c --passive-ftp ftp://sld.tld/bla.iso
>  
>  
>  +-+-+-+-+-
>  $ man wget
>  
>  -c
>  --continue
>  Continue getting a partially-downloaded file.  This is useful when
>  you want to finish up a download started by a previous instance of
>  Wget, or by another program.
>  +-+-+-+-+-
>  
>  
>  works great. 
Thanks shrek-m, That makes two suggestions for wget. I will definitely
have to try it out.


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|   <0>   <->	   Joe (theWordy) Philbrook
|	^		J(tWdy)P
|    ~\___/~	     <&lt;jtwdyp(a)ttlc.net&gt;&gt;
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[Tom Mitchell]

On Sat, May 22, 2004 at 02:14:24PM +0200, shrek-m(a)gmx.de wrote:
>  Joe(theWordy)Philbrook wrote:
>  
>  >3) is there a RELIABLE method of downloading such large files that will
>  >  ALWAYS resume an interrupted download rather than downloading the same
>  >  bytes over again??? 
....

>  $ man wget
>  
>  -c
>  --continue 
Netgear hardware seems to have some issues when you are moving
large piles of bits.

You did not say what physical layer connection you are making to your
netgear box.

What does  mii-tool return?

I have found that my OLD netgear box likes half duplex
with my network adapter.  I do not know if my little bug is
in the netgear box, mother board or driver.

For me my little bug is easy to work around by
turning off full duplex.

   #  mii-tool
   eth0: negotiated 100baseTx-HD, link OK

You can change it...

   #  mii-tool -A 100baseTx-HD    
 or
   #  mii-tool -A 100baseTx-FD

This bug was obvious when I was doing an rsync between two 
boxes behind the NAT box.

You may wish to go as far as forcing 10BaseT on the connection
as a test or connect to the net directly.

Check with netgear for a firmware update.
Same for the cable modem vendor.


-- 
	T o m  M i t c h e l l 
	/dev/null the ultimate in secure storage.

[Joe(theWordy)Philbrook]

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It would appear that on Jun 4, T. 'Nifty New Hat' Mitchell did say:

>  Netgear hardware seems to have some issues when you are moving
>  large piles of bits.
>  
>  You did not say what physical layer connection you are making to your
>  netgear box.
>  
>  What does  mii-tool return?
>  
>  I have found that my OLD netgear box likes half duplex
>  with my network adapter.  I do not know if my little bug is
>  in the netgear box, mother board or driver.
>  
>  For me my little bug is easy to work around by
>  turning off full duplex.
>  
>     #  mii-tool
>     eth0: negotiated 100baseTx-HD, link OK
>  
>  You can change it...
>  
>     #  mii-tool -A 100baseTx-HD    
>   or
>     #  mii-tool -A 100baseTx-FD
>  
>  This bug was obvious when I was doing an rsync between two 
>  boxes behind the NAT box.
>  
>  You may wish to go as far as forcing 10BaseT on the connection
>  as a test or connect to the net directly.
>  
>  Check with netgear for a firmware update.
>  Same for the cable modem vendor. 
Thanks for the clue.

# mii-tool -v -v
eth0: negotiated 100baseTx-FD flow-control, link ok
  registers for MII PHY 1:
    1000 782d 02a8 0154 05e1 45e1 0001 0000
    0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
    0203 0000 0001 ffff 0000 000d ffff 000b
    000a 0000 0000 0000 00b0 0000 0000 0000
  product info: Intel 82555 rev 4
  basic mode:   autonegotiation enabled
  basic status: autonegotiation complete, link ok
  capabilities: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
  advertising:  100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD flow-control
  link partner: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD flow-control

OK I'm definately out of my depth here... It may be that a

#  mii-tool -A 100baseTx-HD

would solve the problem like it did for you.

However when I look at "man mii-tool" the text seems to assume a deeper
understanding than I have of the process...

I gather that this 

#  mii-tool -A 100baseTx-HD

can be done while the internet connection is running? (should I ifdown
first and ifup afterwards?) And is it something that needs to be redone
every time I reboot the PC or more likely every time the router's power
is interupted?

Also, I notice that the man page said of the -A option
"Multiple technologies should be separated  by  commas.   Valid  media 
are  100baseT4, 100baseTx-FD, 100baseTx-HD, 10baseT-FD, and 10baseT-HD."
So I figured that the only thing I wanted to subtract from the default
"advertiseing" was the "100baseTx-FD" so using the above -v -v output
as a guide I tried:

# mii-tool -A 100baseTx-HD, 10baseT-FD, 10baseT-HD, flow-control
SIOCGMIIPHY on '10baseT-FD,' failed: No such device
SIOCGMIIPHY on '10baseT-HD,' failed: No such device
SIOCGMIIPHY on 'flow-control' failed: No such device

If the default setting can advertise those media, why can't I include
them in my list of advertised media??

In any case since my router is connected to comcast via a motorola
surfboard, I'm guessing this is all I need to advertize...

# mii-tool -A 100baseTx-HD
restarting autonegotiation...
# mii-tool -v -v
eth0: negotiated 100baseTx-HD, link ok
  registers for MII PHY 1:
    1000 782d 02a8 0154 0081 45e1 0003 0000
    0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
    0202 0000 0001 1246 0000 0000 106d 0000
    0000 0000 0000 0000 0010 0000 0000 0000
  product info: Intel 82555 rev 4
  basic mode:   autonegotiation enabled
  basic status: autonegotiation complete, link ok
  capabilities: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD
  advertising:  100baseTx-HD
  link partner: 100baseTx-FD 100baseTx-HD 10baseT-FD 10baseT-HD flow-control

- -- 
|  ~^~	 ~^~
|  <?>	 <?>		 Joe (theWordy) Philbrook
|      ^		      J(tWdy)P
|    \___/		   <&lt;jtwdyp(a)ttlc.net&gt;&gt;

But if I actually knew everything, then I'd know I was an idiot...

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[John Aldrich]

On Saturday 22 May 2004 07:38 am, Joe(theWordy)Philbrook wrote:
>  3) is there a RELIABLE method of downloading such large files that will
>     ALWAYS resume an interrupted download rather than downloading the same
>     bytes over again???
>  
Ever looked at NCFTP? It's a nice non-graphical ftp client (someone may have a

GUI front-end for it) that comes with most linuxes that I've seen, and if 
not, it's free to download and use. Plus, by default it supports 
auto-complete (tab to complete) and I believe the default behavior is to 
resume file transfers if you reconnect and start to download something you 
already have partially downloaded.
	John

[Joe(theWordy)Philbrook]

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It would appear that on May 22, John Aldrich did say:

>  On Saturday 22 May 2004 07:38 am, Joe(theWordy)Philbrook wrote:
>  >
>  > 3) is there a RELIABLE method of downloading such large files that will
>  >    ALWAYS resume an interrupted download rather than downloading the same
>  >    bytes over again???
>  >
>  Ever looked at NCFTP? It's a nice non-graphical ftp client (someone may have a 
>  GUI front-end for it) that comes with most linuxes that I've seen, and if 
>  not, it's free to download and use. Plus, by default it supports 
>  auto-complete (tab to complete) and I believe the default behavior is to 
>  resume file transfers if you reconnect and start to download something you 
>  already have partially downloaded.
>  	John 
Well now thats a thought...

I did use ncftp once or twice. I thought it was ok as an ftp client,
though a bit cumbersome to go find what you don't know where your
getting it from. Hence using browsers to find and retrieve.

I don't think I ever noticed the resume behavior... but I like it! 

Once firefox is pointed at the actual list of files I want the url in
the form of [ftp://host.name/directory/] would be in the address box.
Which makes it easy to copy to the clipboard.

Then I can paste the url to a command line: $ ncftp [pasted ftp url]

The rest would not only be easy, But almost fun.

Actually it might be even easier than the wget option that others pointed
out, simply because, whether I'm going to use wget or ncftp, I won't want
to accidentally start downloading with firefox or mozilla while trying to
copy the exact filename to the clipboard. yet getting just the directory
name is easy. Then once ncftp can "ls" the [ftp://host.name/directory/], I
can easily mark the plain text output for pasting into a get command...

Should work for me. Thanks again!

Though I'd still like to know what could be locking up my router?
I don't know enough about how the internet actually works to do more than
wild speculation on it, is it possible that some unkind individuals
wanting to free up some of the bandwidth on a hot download site might
somehow attack existing connections in such a way as to confuse my
router?

- -- 
|      ?           ?		
|			
|        -=-   -=-	 I'm NOT clueless...    	
|        <?>   <?>    	But I just don't know.  	
|            ^          Joe (theWordy) Philbrook           
|           ---  	     J(tWdy)P
|			  <jtwdyp(a)ttlc.net&gt; 
|      ?           ?		


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