Interfaces losing inet6 addresses in ifconfig output after some uptime

Interfaces losing inet6 addresses in ifconfig output after some uptime

[Marcello Barnaba]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2310 bytes --]

This is somewhat strange, after an average of 25 days of uptime, either
with kernel 2.6.6 or kernel 2.6.7 (didn't notice this with earlier
kernels, but the problem may be there as well, sorry but I didn't care
about this before, and the box is in production so it cannot be rebooted
easily), ifconfig does not display the inet6 addresses of my interfaces
anymore, but the addresses work as expected and are correctly in iproute
output:

 golem:/etc/shorewall# ifconfig eth0
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:50:FC:5A:0B:58  
          inet addr:192.168.203.1  Bcast:192.168.203.127 
Mask:255.255.255.128
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:50564399 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:46289378 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:3363466008 (3.1 GiB)  TX bytes:1097487814 (1.0 GiB)
          Interrupt:10 

 golem:/etc/shorewall# ip addr show dev eth0
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:50:fc:5a:0b:58 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 192.168.203.1/25 brd 192.168.203.127 scope global eth0
    inet 192.168.203.6/25 brd 192.168.203.127 scope global secondary
eth0:1
    inet6 2001:1418:106:1::a1/64 scope global 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 2001:1418:106:1::1/64 scope global 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 fe80::250:fcff:fe5a:b58/64 scope link 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

oh, as you can see I just now noticed that ifconfig dropped the
secondary interface IP address as well..

This is a vanilla 2.6.7:

Linux golem.softmedia.lan 2.6.7 #1 Fri Jul 2 11:11:30 CEST 2004 i686
unknown
 15:41:42 up 27 days,  4:21,  2 users,  load average: 0.01, 0.00, 0.00

..running a debian woody: 

net-tools 1.60
ifconfig 1.42 (2001-04-13)

Known kernel bug, ifconfig bug, whatever? A net-tools upgrade from
backports.org is possible, what do you guys think about this issue?

TIA.
-- 
Marcello Barnaba - SoftMedia S.c.r.l.    ::    Mobile: +39 (340) 3698342
Via Mauro Amoruso, 11 - 70124 Bari       ::    Phone:  +39 (080) 5046314
pub 1024D/F04476A2 :: 6807 EEA5 7F97 AC9A D8EF  AE73 64CD 71A2 F044 76A2

[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

Re: Interfaces losing inet6 addresses in ifconfig output after some uptime

[Brian Bruns]

On Thu, 29 Jul 2004 15:42:17 +0200, Marcello Barnaba wrote:
> This is somewhat strange, after an average of 25 days of uptime, either
> with kernel 2.6.6 or kernel 2.6.7 (didn't notice this with earlier
> kernels, but the problem may be there as well, sorry but I didn't care
> about this before, and the box is in production so it cannot be rebooted
> easily), ifconfig does not display the inet6 addresses of my interfaces
> anymore, but the addresses work as expected and are correctly in iproute
> output:
> 

I can confirm a somewhat similar problem on vanilla x86 2.6.7 kernel
running on an Athlon XP 2000+, EEPro 1000/TX.  Basically, ifconfig
shows all but the first inet6 address.  However, the address is still
recognized by the standard 'ip' program, and can be bound to by
applications as normal.

Uptime is 29 days, and I don't have the luxury of rebooting the box to
see if it clears the issue.

If you need more information on the system, please feel free to let me
know what you need exactly, and I'll get it to you.


-- 
Brian Bruns
The Summit Open Source Development Group
Open Solutions For A Closed World / Anti-Spam Resources
http://www.sosdg.org

The Abusive Hosts Blocking List
http://www.ahbl.org