[X-Unix] Need to log internet connectivity

[Jerry Krinock]

on 04/06/27 11:25, William H. Magill at magill at mcgillsociety.org wrote:

> 
> On 27 Jun, 2004, at 09:18, Jerry Krinock wrote:
> 
>> Our DSL line is intermittent; it goes up and down over periods of
>> minutes
>> and hours.  To troubleshoot local interference I need to run some
>> days-long
>> experiments and get a log which would give me something like:
>> 
>> 6:04 AM  DSL went down
>> 6:10 AM  DSL came up
>> 7:15 AM  DSL went down
>> 7:22 AM  DSL came up
>> ...
>> 
>> What's the *easy* way to get this?
> 
> There is nothing inherent in the OS which will give you the
> information... especially since the definition of "up" and "down" is
> "relative."
> 
> For example, the DSL modem may in fact be up, but the DSLAM is down....
> Or the Modem and DSLAM may both be functional, but the MAN behind it in
> never-never land....

Thanks, William.  These details would be nice, but I just want to show my
ISP that is failed.  They should have a log of failures at the higher
levels.

> In my case, with my DSL line I have a real ISP and static addresses,
> don't have to use PPPOE and DHCP. I have a script which runs
> periodically on one of my systems which uses ping to determine if
> certain portions of the network are reachable.

I do not have static IP with Earthlink, but I don't think that matters.  I
think that pinging their POP server, or, say, yahoo.com would be sufficient.
I presume your script is a cron job?

> I have had DSL since the beginning, so I have a seriously dumb and
> non-manageable DSL modem.

Mine may be more manageable but you have to connect a Windows PC with and
old-fashioned RS232 to the "comm" port.  I don't think it is "web
addressable."

> The only "trick" with such scripts is their period. Too frequent, and
> you load the connection with lots of non-productive and unnecessary
> traffic....

Since this is a temporary troubleshooting, I'm not feeling guilty about
extravagant use of bandwidth...

During the last hour, I set my pop email client to check for email every 1
minute.  The trouble I found is that, with PPPoE, once the connection drops,
it seems the Mac OS defaults to the internal modem (even though it is "not
configured"), and does not seem try to re-establish PPPoE until I open
System Preferences > Network > Show: Network Status and click Connect.  This
is even though I have checked "Connec automatially when needed" and  "Send
PPP echo packets", and un-checked "Disconnect if idle".

Does anyone know if this can be made to reconnect automatically with PPPoE?

> As far as troubleshooting interference on the DSL line, the most likely
> problem has to do with the modem loosing sync with the DSLAM. The cause
> is one of two things -- either you have real "line noise" problem; or
> you have CO activity which results in the DSLAM being reset on a
> "routine" basis by Telco technicians....

I believe the problem is impulse noise which comes and goes.  Until
recently, we only had the problem when it rained, but during the past sunny
week it's been doing it on and off all day.  There is a correlation between
the DSL being out of sync, with the amount of impulse noise (which sounds
like kkkkick......kkkkkick) that I hear on our voice telephone.

William, please post your script when you get a chance!!

Thanks again,

Jerry