🚀 go-pugleaf

Richard Senior wrote:
> 
> In article <39991BA4.6CB0C24A@usa.net>,
>         Ben Hardill <b.hardill@usa.net> writes:
> 
> > I run a small network of win95 boxs at work with a redhat 6.2 box as a
> > Oracle 8i server. The Redhat box also runs diald and is setup to
> > masquarad for the network. This all works fine execept that diald keeps
> > bringing the line up every 10 mins for the minium time then drops it
> > again.
> 
> I had exactly this problem when I ran Diald and Oracle on the same box. I
> don't recall the exact details but I think the problem was that Oracle was
> doing a DNS lookup of the hostname.
> 
> A caching nameserver made the problem more tolerable and the dodgy
> solution of changing the hostname of the server to the 'internal' hostname
> fixed it completely.
> 
> The problem went away for me because I moved Oracle onto a different box
> for performance reasons (my 486 was groaning already and I wanted to
> install the Apps Server and WebDB). However, if you can identify the
> packets that are triggering the link you should be able to ignore them in
> the Diald config files. Figuring out what was triggering Diald was always
> a problem - the logging functionality of IP Chains in the newer kernels is
> probably the best way these days.
> 
> Sorry I can't be more specific but hopefully this sets you along the right
> lines.

DNS is probably the commonest cause of unwanted dialups. Windows boxes
have a nasty tendency in my experience to look up DNS names for no
apparant reason. I dialed into my home NT RAS server[1] from work today
and it promptly looked up "www.uk.ibm.com". No, I do not work for IBM.

To trap this run a caching nameserver with query logging turned on. Then
you can look in the system log to see what looked up what just before
the dialup. This is how I tamed my dial-on-demand ISDN before it broke
the bank.

Ian

[1] RAS is IMO the best thing about NT. Probably the only good thing.
It's one of the very few things I still use it for.