[plug] RIP/OSPF

[Tim]

I recently had some rather strange and odd network issues (SSH half
logging in but never giving a terminal, HTTP traffic randomly stopping
(not browsing, rather people trying to access a website hosted on my
connection)).
I traced it down to the new server I setup in the house, which all
traffic is supposed to pass through before it is directed to the
modem. Realising that something was amiss I changed the default
gateway to the modem, and suddenly everything seems to be working fine
again!

Now I'm not sure if the issue was due to a firewall issue on the
server (due to it thinking a connection isn't already part of a
session, as the incoming side would skip it, but the outgoing packets
would pass through it and then go to the modem, so ether the server or
the modem could get the connection confused).

While researching the issue, I discovered RIP/OSPF, and started
wondering if maybe I should have one of those enabled on my network,
to ensure that shortest path for traffic is taken. The server that was
replaced used to inform computers that there was a shorter path when
the traffic didn't need to go through it. (So anything not on port 80
it would tell the computer it could talk directly to the modem). I
only discovered it once when pinging an address, and noticing that the
first ICMP reply also included information about a shorter path. The
new server how ever doesn't do this. I assume that this was probably
RIP updating routing tables?

So, should I have ether RIP or OSPF running on the server and modem?
Would that have solved this issue?

Thanks

Tim
-- 
Timothy White - Somewhere in Australia