[rescue] What is this traffic?

[Laurence Brevard]

At 08:39 AM 10/29/2015, microcode at zoho.com wrote:

  On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 06:53:04AM -0600, patrick at zill.net wrote:
  > You can try switching the ports around, to see if there is a
  different behavior.  Otherwise you will have to wait until you either
  get a switch that allows for mirror ports, or, you set up a
  transparent bridge using a machine you have that has 2 nics.
  >

  I have machines with plenty of NICs but I'm even worse at network
  stuff than
  I am UNIX so I'll have to look into this. Thanks for all the comments
  guys.

You aren't by any chance in the Austin area? I see ZOHO has an Austin
office in addition to Pleasanton, CA.

If so I just moved back (after 14 years on the left coast). I have lots
of spare switches and would happily let you try one.

Anyway... some other thoughts and questions:

* Do you just have one LAN port on the ADSL router coming to the switch?

If more than one, I'd try a different port from the router

* Have you tried using a different port on the switch to connect to the
router?

I think this was already asked and answered.

* Have you tried a different Ethernet CABLE?

I've seen a bad cable cause all kinds of noisy traffic.

* On the switch, is only the activity light on the port to the router
flashing or are other ports also active?

If it's just the port to the router, I'm pretty amazed that the LAN port
on the router is NOT flashing. But this could indicate a bad cable. Your
degraded Internet access speed could also be caused by that.

* If multiple ports on the switch are flashing, are they flashing all at
once together or separately?

All at once indicates either broadcast of a problem with the switch
setting up the individual paths.

* What mixture of systems are on the LAN via the switch?

I've seen discovery protocols from both Mac OS X and Windows generate a
lot of traffic.

FWIW, I have a BUNCH of network stuff!

INTERNET CONNECTIONS: Time Warner Business cable modem (35 Mbps in, 5
Mbps out), AT&T U-verse (~18 Mbps in, ~ 1.5 Mbps out), hot spot via
iPhone or iPad if necessary.

COMPUTER HARDWARE: 2 Mac OS X 10.10, 8 Windows (7, 8.1, and 10), 2 LAN
printers, 2 iPhone, Android phone, 2 iPad, 1 Kindle

OTHER IP HARDWARE: 10 IP cameras, 3 AT&T U-verse boxes, ChannelMaster
DVR+, Apple TV, 3 ROKU, Vizio Smart TV, Amazon Fire Stick (but seems to
have died)

VIRTUAL MACHINES: Varies... Currently 7 Linux (CentOS 5, 6, and 7), XP
Pro SP3, Windows 2000 Server. Hosted using VMware Workstation 9, 11, and
VMware Fusion (on Mac).

With all this stuff, sometimes the LAN goes crazy. I finally bought
managed switches but have barely begun to deploy (or figure out what to
do!) with them.

By the way, I'm not a "real" system admin. I don't even play one on TV.
;-)

LAURENCE C. BREVARD
http://www.BrevardAndBrevard.com
Cedar Park, Texas