[pkg-dhcp-devel] Bug#604007: Bad line reading interface information

[x at muc.ccc.de]

package: isc-dhcp-client
version: 4.1.1-P1-12

hi!

I kept getting the following error message from dhclient after some uptime:

Bad line reading interface information

Turns out the error occurs parsing /proc/net/dev.
While the syntax of /proc/net/dev seemed ok, i had absurdly high counter values on one interface:

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr de:ad:be:ef:ca:fe
          UP BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:4158662212925880 errors:24951973277555280 dropped:8317324425851760 overruns:4158662212925880 frame:20793311064629400
          TX packets:4158662212925880 errors:16634653146670815 dropped:0 overruns:4158662212925880 carrier:8317324425851760
          collisions:20793311064629400 txqueuelen:1000 
          RX bytes:4158662212925880 (3.6 PiB)  TX bytes:4158662212925880 (3.6 PiB)
          Interrupt:44 

after resetting these counters to 0 (module unload/reload), dhclient works again.

I don't know where these counter values come from, it's probably a module bug. Then again the values as such are totally valid and theoretically possible. I think dhclient should use the same data type/supported ranges for these counters if it wants to parse /proc/net/dev.
btw: i tried to configure a different interface, not eth0. I.e. skipping parsing the rest of lines of interfaces dhclient doesn't deal with might be a better strategy regarding fault tolerance.

regards,

	Chris