Linux network behavior wierdness

[Paul Lussier]

Hi all,

I have a wierd problem where some hosts respond to a broadcast ping
packet and others don't.

I have some hosts which, when I do a ping -b 10.95.0.0 everything answers.
On other hosts, doing exactly the same thing, I get no response.

A reboot resets a "broken" host, but over time it will re-develop the problem.
And I can't seem to figure out how to make the problem occur...

I can't figure out if it's something we're doing which is causing this
change, or if it's a kernel thing where some threshold is reached and
it just stops.

Fwiw, we're running Debian/Etch with a 2.6.18 kernel.  Most NICs are
Intel e1000, though some are broadcom.  In general, I've seen it
happen across our lab on different hardware platforms with different
motherboards and nics.

Any insights would be most appreciated.
-- 
Seeya,
Paul