[afnog] Fwd: Problems with a Mail server with 2 routers running OSPF

[Charles Musisi]

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>Date: Fri, 07 May 2004 13:06:56 +0400
>To: afrigeek at psg.com
>From: Zeimm Auladin <zeimm at yahoo.com>
>Subject: Problems with a Mail server with 2 routers running OSPF
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>Hello everyone,
>
>Have a great time in Dakar. Hope to see you all next time.
>I need your help  for a very strange problem since a week and we are 
>really struggling. Any suggestion is welcome.
>I have a site with 2 Frame relay routers connecting onto 2 frame relay 
>lines on 1 router  at the head office. The router configuration is the 
>same as has been used before without problems. We have OSPF running. The 
>users PCs (windows machines ) are connected via the 2 different gateways 
>on the 2 routers.  They use Lotus notes to connect to a Lotus Notes server 
>running IBM  AIX at the head office. And this worked fine before.
>
>But last Monday, we started getting "server not responding problems" on 
>the Lotus Notes server for all users, not just for those site users but 
>most of the time it's the users at that site who experience problems.
>The other IP applications (like telnet and Internet) work fine.
>As soon as one router is switched off and all PCs put on the second 
>router, there are not Lotus Notes problems.
>
>We changed one router thinking it might be a router problem but had no 
>luck. there no error messages on the router. We are trying to get a second 
>router to test there.
>
>Since the SYN packets to the Lotus Notes server can be sniffed arriving at 
>the server, I believe this is not a routing or router problem. But I 
>cannot explain how Lotus Notes can detect and react to packets coming out 
>of two routers and why it should do so. The problem is also intermittent. 
>Lotus worked fine with 1 PC on each router but we had the problems with 2 
>pcs on one and 3 pcs on another. Can a virus be the cause?
>has anyone seen this before?
>
>Thanks,
>Zeimm.
>
>