Matt Morgan wrote:
I'm having a new (to me), strange networking problem on an FC5 install on a new computer. Basically, I can't make some network connections to some sites. The best way to explain this is probably with some examples: 1) I can ssh to my own server. 2) I can http to my own server, but I can't download the image on my home page (a very small png). Nor can I get the squirrelmail home page to load from that server. 3) I can login via IMAP to my own server, but then Thunderbird times out when downloading mail. 4) I can login via POP3 to my ISP email account, but then Thunderbird times out when downloading mail. 5) I can get to any google web site, like my gmail, and to register.co.uk via http, but I can't download slashdot pages or New York Times pages or most other web pages (timeout on "Waiting for /server/"). In all the cases of failure, it's not DNS--I get the address fine. On the same computer I have a Windows XP install, where all these things work fine. So I know it's not hardware. For what it's worth, everything worked fine for a about a day and a half before I lost some networking. I'm clueless as to what might have changed since it worked. The network adapter is an SiS 190, which is historically problematic in Linux, but I thought it was all supposed to be worked out in FC5. System-config-network calls it a "Silicon Integrated Systems [SiS] Unknown Device 0190," though, which doesn't sound good. I have seen links to an SiS-provided driver for the 190 that I can compile and install (eg http://www.cse.iitb.ac.in/~mohitz/tech/lan.php) but they look old (kernel 2.6.9 era). Is there some easier/more current way to get it working on FC5? I checked this list for help, and I don't see any complaints about this adapter since FC3 ... Thanks, Matt
You didn't specify what kernel you're using, but these symptoms sound like a TCP window scaling issue. TCP window scaling was changed in 2.6.17, and certain middleboxes in the network pathway to your destination sites might not be able to handle it. FreeBSD systems are also susceptible. Google for details.
Become root and issue this command, then retry your connections. sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_window_scaling = 0
