Re: [2.2.18] outgoing connections getting stuck in SYN_SENT

[Mark Longair]

Mark Longair <[e-mail]> writes:
[..]
> I'm having a problem where twice a day or so, any new tcp connection
> it gets stuck in SYN_SENT.  Eventually this situation rights itself,
> but obviously in the meantime many services (e.g. squid, X) are
> broken.  The machine does IP masquerdading with ipchains, and
> masqueraded connections through it seem to be unaffected.  The
> kernel version is 2.2.18, although the same happened with 2.2.17.
[..]

It turned out that this was caused by using autofw to forward a range
of ports (2300-2400 in this case.)  It seems that these ports aren't
reserved in any way, so eventually the server tries to use one as a
local port on an outgoing connection.

There was a previous reference to this on the list: 

  http://kernelnotes.org/lnxlists/linux-kernel/lk_9908_01/msg00573.html

I'm looking at finding fix for that.  Would this be an issue with the
new networking code in 2.4?

Thanks for the suggestions...