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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!news.sprintlink.net!gryphon.phoenix.net!phoenix.phoenix.net!pflores From: pflores@phoenix.net (Paul Flores) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: FreeBSD crashes TCP/IP printer Date: 14 Dec 1995 13:41:18 GMT Organization: Phoenix Data Systems Lines: 46 Message-ID: <4ap9hu$6s2@gryphon.phoenix.net> References: <4andsa$l3@austin.polstra.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: phoenix.net X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] John Polstra (jdp@polstra.com) wrote: : Something _very_ strange is going on between my two FreeBSD machines : and my network printer. Merely connecting to the printer from a : FreeBSD machine crashes the printer. Connecting to the printer in : exactly the same way from either of two other machines works fine. : The printer is a Lexmark 4039, with an Ethernet card that supports : TCP/IP. The printer's network interface supports several ways of : sending jobs to the printer. One method is to simply FTP the file : to the printer. I've been using it in that way for almost 2 years : from a system running SVR4, and it works fine. (I have spooler : software that does the FTP transfer.) : One FreeBSD machine is running 2.1.0-951026-SNAP, and has a SMC : EtherPower card. The other FreeBSD machine is running 2.0.5-RELEASE, : and has a SMC 8013 Ethernet card. The working SVR4 machine also : has a SMC 8013. : Note, this has nothing to do with FTP itself. Merely trying to : connect via TCP/IP from a FreeBSD machine to the printer causes it : to crash. That is clear from the fact that the connection hangs : up in the SYN_SENT state. (But, I confirmed it with a tiny Python : program.) Because the printer crash happens at the _earliest_ : stage of TCP/IP connection establishment, I'm inclined to think : that the problem is at the Ethernet layer. : Another clue: If I FTP to the printer from a _remote_ FreeBSD machine, : (so that the connection comes in through my router), it works fine. This sounds like BSD MAY be tossing some wierd packet configs on your net.... (don't know how this could be...) there SHOULD be a TCO FRAME SIZE in your packet and that is probably what your print server is looking for. If BSD for some reason doesn't send it (Which IS RFC Compliant) and your printer software doesn't know not to use a zero length packet size, somewhere along the way, the printer software is probably generating a devide by zero error and crashing. (Took me 4 months to track down a simillar problem. :< ) The fix: Contact the manufacture of the print server and have them ship you the latest version of the code, or have them write you a special, or hope one of the develement guys can answer this from a FreeBSD prospective... (I am but a humble user of BSD, and I do think it rulez... :> ) Paul Flores