Perplexing Ultra 60 networking issue

Hi all,

This is a good 'un: I have an Ultra 60 running Solaris 10 6/06 with
no other patches installed. The machine's hostname is (unimaginatively)
ultra60 and it's IP address is 192.168.0.5. Until yesterday, this IP
address was bound to the on-board 100 basetT Ethernet port, hme0. All
was good.

Last night I installed a Netgear GA311 GBE adaptor; installation went
without a hitch, and ifconfig -a plumb showed the new device, rge0.
Excellent. The two interfaces even had different MAC addresses, so
I didn't have to mess about with the OBP.

The plan is to migrate to using rge0, so I renamed /etc/hostname.hme0
to /etc/hostname.rge0 and created a new /etc/hostname.hme0 with a differnent
hostname (ultra60-hme0) in it, just in case, and added the new IP
address to /etc/hosts. So, the intention is for rge0 to be associated
with the hostname ultra60, having an IP address of 192.168.0.5, and for
hme0 to be associated with the hostname ultra60-hme0, having an IP address
of 192.168.0.6. Here's the ifconfig output:

root@ultra60248# ifconfig -a
lo0: flags=2001000849<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4,VIRTUAL> mtu 8232 index 1
inet 127.0.0.1 netmask ff000000
hme0: flags=1000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> mtu 1500 index 2
inet 192.168.0.6 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
ether 8:0:20:93:91:dc
rge0: flags=1000843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,MULTICAST,IPv4> mtu 1500 index 3
inet 192.168.0.5 netmask ffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
ether 0:14:6c:81:e4:f4

So far, so good, right? Now here's the perplexing bit: despite both interfaces
seeming to be bound to the right IP address, I can only connect to or ping the
machine if hme0 is plugged in. rge0's link light is lit, as is the corresponding
LED on the switch. I've also tried different cables and a different switch port,
all to no avail.

On another machine, I run ping -s 192.168.0.5, which should send a steady stream
of pings to rge0. The trouble is, it doesn't. The pings go to hme0. I know
this because if I unplug the cable going to hme0, the ping stops, resuming again
when I plug the cable back in.

Does anyone know what's going on here, coz I'm stumped. I have another rge0
card in a Sun Blade 1000 (running Nevada b41), and it works fine. The only
other difference is that in that machine I disabled the onboard Ethernet port
(eri0) because I can easily get console access if the network is FUBARed.

Any clues greatfully received,

--
Rich Teer, SCNA, SCSA, OpenSolaris CAB member

President,
Rite Online Inc.

Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638
URL: http://www.rite-group.com/rich
.

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