One thing you might check before and after the problem occurs is the
MAC address for "both" portmasters using 'show ether0', or, look at
the arp cache on your routers/unix systems that are on the same
ethernet segment.
If you have an early version of the internal EPROM within the
Portmaster (earlier than version "F"), and, you upgrade the ComOS
to 3.3.2 (or around that version), you will find the MAC address of
the Portmaster will change itself to some character string. In my
case the character string was "<cr><lf>WARN", and you see that being
used as the MAC from any other device on that same ethernet segment.
Our tests indicate this MAC address change occurs anytime from a
few minutes after a reboot to several hours (which in your case
could be days). Upgrading the EPROM to a more recent level
corrects the problem. There is generally a small Livingston
charge for the new EPROM, which is burned with a new Ethernet MAC
address in them. (Don't try to duplicate the EPROM yourself.)
You might also note that if two Portmasters on the same ethernet
segment have this early EPROM problem, they will both change their
MAC addresses to the same character string and all other devices
on that ethernet segment (including routers, etc) will become very
confused/inoperative due to the duplicate MAC's.
The EPROM version can be checked during a reboot (if a console is
attached to S0), or by viewing the label on the only EPROM chip
inside the chassis.
If you have a router(s), then separating the two offending
portmasters onto two different ethernet segments will likely clear
the problem as well.
Rich Adamson
adar0@routers.com