ping: sendto: No buffer space available

[Bill Moran]

Jaime wrote:
> 	I've been noticing for a few days that my network's performance is
> less than good.  When I checked on it, I found that the firewall
> attempting to ping the ISP's DNS resolver would have "hiccups."  The ISP
> claims that there is nothing wrong on the T-1 line and that there is a
> problem on the ethernet interface of the router (which leads to the
> firewall).
> 
> 	The pings will run just fine for several minutes at a time and
> then begin to output this:
> 
> ping: sendto: No buffer space available
> 
> 	This will go on for anywhere from 15 seconds to 5 minutes, during
> which we're effectively not connected to the Internet at all.  An
> occasional ping will work, but only about 1 in 20 and it seems random.
> Then, just as suddenly, the connection will work again.
> 
> 	I'm not completely sure what this means, but I found the following
> command in the mailing list archives:
> 
> cerberus# sysctl -a | grep intr_qu
> net.inet.ip.intr_queue_maxlen: 50
> net.inet.ip.intr_queue_drops: 6987
> 
> 	Does anyone have any suggestions or tips?

What make/model of NIC are you using?
The only time I've ever seen this, the only thing that solved the problem
was swapping the network card out for a better one.
That's not to say it isn't a driver problem, as the new network card used
a different driver as well.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com