Bizarre Issue

[rob998]

Hi all,

We had a Juniper SSG5 firewall installed on site by our LA a couple of months ago to complie with 'Goverment Connect' and seperate/join the admin and curriculum network. The admin is on a 10.20.x.x range and the curriculum is on a 10.21.x.x range. All has been working fine apart from some small issue like not being able to ftp or VC but these were sorted quite quickly.

Our staff use SIMS to register which means we have a mapped drive to sims on each teacher laptop (on the curriculum. This morning all was working fine, lesson 1 everyone was able to login to SIMS and take registers. Lesson 2 it was reported that SIMS wasn't working. I couldn't get onto the SIMS drive map. I could not ping the SIMS server either. Then the users on the curriculum side reported that they were not recieving external e-mails or able to access the internet. A quick inspection ruled out a switch failure or any server issues. Nothing had changed on the network at all during the day or at all this week!

I called the LA and they told me the Juniper SSG5 was not responding and could I reset it which I gladly did....still nothing. Anyway a guy from the LA came out and replaced the SSG5 but still nothing. He then changed the cabling to the way it was before the SSG5 was installed. Still nothing.... He went away stumped and with no real answers.

If you need anymore info guys I will provide it. As I have not seen anything like this before I don't know what info might be needed.

Any help or advice would be greatly recieved.

[eduabncs]

Check the patch panels for end to end connectivity. Rats and mice do like ehthernet cable for some reason!

I'm also get somebody from the LA to check the access lists etc on the firewall with a fine tooth comb. Sometimes all is takes is one missing line for the whole thing to stop working! I know...from experience!

Work back from the bits that are working to the bit/bits that isn't/aren't!

[FN-GM]

Can you ping the IP address of the sims server

What does nslookup show on the sims server?

[rob998]

@ eduabncs

Thanks for your reply. Thats one thing I haven't checked doh! Ethernet cable!! I will try it first thing. I'm lucky enough to have 2 guys from the LA in first thing. If the cable fixes it I get to look smug (he only spent 3 hours here today)

@ FN-GM

I cannot ping the SIMS server, I can't even ping our default gateway. I know the LA guy tried the nslookup but I don't know the results.

Basically we are being blocked somewhere along the line. Blocking access to the admin network, access to the outside world. Very frustrating as the LA won't let me do anything as its 'their' kit! I have double and triple checked all my switches but I cannot see anything out of the ordinary on them.

I'll be trying the ethernet cable!!

[rob998]

The issue has been resolved.

The router ARP cache was cleared and the router was rebooted. Everything just worked after that and is still working

Thanks for the replies