[OpenIndiana-discuss] weird packet garbling problem

[Edward Ned Harvey (openindiana)]

> From: Edward Ned Harvey (openindiana)
> [mailto:openindiana at nedharvey.com]
> 
> I am having a really hard time coming up with a plausible explanation for this,
> other than some kind of kernel bug with openindiana...

Found a new clue, which is totally unbelievable, yet totally enlightening.

The firewall is a cisco asa 5505.  We have both anyconnect & ipsec vpn for mobile clients enabled.  I tried them both, and got the same result for both (thinking maybe it was a problem with the vpn client.)

My home firewall is a pfsense device.  So today, I enabled point-to-point ipsec vpn between my home and work.  Now I can sit at home with my laptop, use the laptop VPN client to connect direct to the failing OI hosts...  Or I can disconnect my laptop vpn client, enable the firewall vpn, and then ssh to the failing OI machines.

When I use the IPSec or Anyconnect VPN client, I have the problem.  When I enable the site-to-site VPN, I don't have the problem. 

So I've reached two conclusions:

-1-  The problem is related to the Cisco ASA firewall, and mobile VPN connectivity.
-2-  The problem is related to OpenIndiana.  (No problems connecting to other ssh/vnc systems in the office, linux, mac, or windows.)

I have not yet tried using a mac/linux VPN client.  Might learn something there too.

I don't know why there would be a bad interaction between the OI machines and the Cisco ASA.  But there is.  I think I'll probably try to lay it on Cisco support next.  They'll probably tell me to upgrade IOS.  Even though this is a relatively current stable version ... the most stable latest bugfix version of the almost-latest line, last July.  The one they recommended as "the most stable one we're recommending for now."