[arch-general] Linux server crash causing router switch to stop working

[David Rosenstrauch]

Been experiencing a weird issue several times recently that's got me 
stumped.

A couple of weeks ago, my entire home network went dead right in the 
middle of a zoom call.  Same problem happened again late last night. 
The problem is intermittent/occasional:  everything runs without issue 
for several days, then suddenly crashes.

I figured the issue was a problem with my wifi router, but after much 
debugging I don't think that's the case.  I have a new (Arch) linux 
server I built a few weeks ago.  What seems to be happening is that my 
server crashes for some reason - and then looks like it's causing the 
ethernet LAN switch inside my router to stop working.  (I verified that 
when I unplug the server's network cable the router starts working 
again, and when I plug it back in the router stops.)

My best guess as to what's happening is that when the server crashes 
it's somehow either flooding the network, or sending out invalid network 
packets, and so making the router inoperable.  I have no idea what could 
cause this, though, or how to fix it.  (Or even if this is definitely 
the issue.)  I also have no way to know if this is an issue with my 
server hardware vs. say an issue in a recent kernel upgrade, since the 
server is so new.

Server is running Arch, and is kept very up to date.  It's using the 
on-board LAN chip on the mobo - Realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE (network module 
r8169, RTL8125B chip/firmware).

Router is a Netgear R8000, running dd-wrt (r47097).

Any suggestions welcome!

Thanks,

DR