Static IP from eircom shíteness...

Chief

The company im working for have just set up an ISDN account and an smtp server with eircon in one of their office. the isdn account has a static IP (for exchange or so eircon say). The problem is that when someone uses the connection for the internet, then hangs up, and say another user dials straight away, it connects, but for 3-5 minutes the connection doesnt work.. no traffic comes in.. if you keep refreshing for those few minutes it finally starts to work again.
Is there any way of overcoming this.. or are they doomed to refresh (to keep the proxy's dial-on-demand alive and not start the process all over again) forever for those 3-5 minutes..? do we have to have a static IP for using exchange 2000 and the mail domain?

as per usual.. thanks for all and any help laeds

jd

What happens with a traceroute?

Chief

ping tracert et all bug out.. for those few minutes.. then mysteriously everything returns.. (the connection has been active during all this)

Renton

well it sounds to me like you are using the "indigo solution" as eircom like to call it.

one thing you could do is check http://corporate.eircom.net and make sure the settings in your exchange server are ok,

You do need the static IP for the system they've set up, the reason for this is that their MX Records will point to your IP, and thats where they'll send the mail every time you get it.

The problem is that when someone uses the connection for the internet, then hangs up, and say another user dials straight away, it connects, but for 3-5 minutes the connection doesnt work.. no traffic comes in.. if you keep refreshing for those few minutes it finally starts to work again.

Well, hmm, why are they hanging up? .. Are they physically walking over to the server and hanging up, or are you talking about a timeout ?

Renton.

java

what isdn equipment do you have ?

Chief

Windows 2000 Server
Exchange Server 2000
Normal ISDN card, Sambar Server 5.0 (for dial-on-demand).
Sambar is set to time out after 5 mins of incativity (it's the program that hangs up) and because of eircons bills we want it to hang up ASAP...

jd

Do a ping -t from each machine
(ie the gateway and a client) when you bring up a connection..

omni

Chief,

Which eircom net POP are you dialling into? It's possible you're dialling into one using one of the older access server types. With these, there's a "hold time" that prevents routing updates from occurring for the first 5 minutes after you log out. This will lead to what looks like a "dead" connection if you try to reconnect within 5 mins of logging off (as the access server won't update the routing table until 5 mins has elapsed since your logout). This is a feature of the routing protocol used and is there for reasons of network stability.

There are hardly any of these access servers left in the network, and they should all be gone by the end of the year. In the mean time try not to re-connect within 5 mins of logging off. You're wasting money by constantly reconnecting anyway, since there's a 6c setup charge per call so you might as well have stayed online!

omni

Chief

Its either Letterkenny or Lifford here in Donegal.

De Rebel

i have a similar config

in reality you need a static IP for Exchange SMTP to work - the workarounds are not nice.

I have today tested disconnect/reconnect to ericom- working no issues, even with no more than a few seconds between

flamegrill

The static ip is very handy.

I've seen quite a few setups like this, it works very well. i do however think this is their new dyanmic routing system. But i've not seen the time out business before. What you might consider is a LAN modem, a 3Com Office connect one for that matter.
Very usefull for dealing with dial on demand situations.

Have you spoken to anyone in eircom about this?

emailed support?

are you dialing 1891150150 or a local POP number?

Paul

omni

Originally posted by Chief
Its either Letterkenny or Lifford here in Donegal.

Chief,

If you try this again I think you'll find the problem has magically cured itself in the last couple of days, as Lifford POP is no more.

omni

steve-hosting36

ODMR/ATRN makes SMTP with a dynamic IP very practical, works fine with Echange, Mdaemon, etc

Chief

Thanks for all the help guys, yuppers there omni... everything mysteriously did start to go right :O) Happy days!