Bob Goodwin: >>> I've had two episodes of the router becoming inoperative in the last >>> 48 hours! This router has been in operation for a year and a half >>> without any problem at all. Tim: >> That can happen with some routers when peer-to-peer software has been >> used and has amassed a plethora of concurrent connections. Bob Goodwin: > Can I expect that activity to taper off in a few days? I'm basing this mostly on other's observations, as I've only dabbled in peer-to-peer. I prefer classical music, we have a good 24-hour free to air radio station without advertising, and I've no interest in listening to crapily encoded MP3s. I've had a look at peer-to-peer, concluded that it wouldn't serve me well, and I don't really like the overall circumstances. Other clients will continue to try to connect back to you for some time. They'll make periodic connection attempts, waiting longer and longer after each unsuccessful attempt. In themselves, the connection attempts are only tiny, but attracting thousands of them is where a problem can occur. Which can be a problem for your network, overall. Or even just for the firewall/router trying to keep track of what it should and shouldn't allow. I have seen gtk-gnutella keep trying to connect to a client to finish downloading a file every ten minutes or so, forever. It doesn't search the network for a new source, it tries the same IP it found earlier, it doesn't eventually drop the file from the download list. I'd imagine most clients probably do the same, so if you'd shared out something popular, you'll be on a lot of people's connecting-to lists. If your peer-to-peer client has a proper log-off procedure, then follow it, rather than just abruptly disconnect. The idea is that it should send a disconnecting flag of some sort to the network, but it would seem that it's usually ignored, anyway. If you have the ability to change your public IP, such as resetting your modem and your ISP doesn't always reassign you the same one, then you'll fob off the connection attempts onto the next person to get your IP. If you share as well as download, you will attract more connections. Not just those having a look, but those getting files from you. If you are comitting piracy, rather than sharing freely redistributable files, then sharing stuff out is an even worse offense than just nicking files. For what it's worth, if you're into getting music or movies, forgo the expensive ISP monthly account, go for a cheaper account and spend the difference down the local record shop once a month. Or find a legit cheap pay-for-music download site. > Each time it has happened was in the evening. First time I thought the > ISP was down but four in the morning when I awoke I decided I needed to > troubleshoot the problem and found it was the wireless router. I had > no wired connection to the router from here so I could not make a more > precise determination of what had happened, just that it wasn't > communicating with the access points. Re-cycling power brought it back > to its senses. Some modems have a status page that'll show you things like how much load its CPU is dealing with, how many connections, how many errors, etc. If yours has one, you might want to check on it. -- [tim@bigblack ~]$ uname -ipr 2.6.22.5-76.fc7 i686 i386 Using FC 4, 5, 6 & 7, plus CentOS 5. Today, it's FC7. Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
