W5100/Ethernet cannot use socket as UDP after using it as TCP

You actually bring up a fantastic point with your DNS example. When you call EthernetClient::connect(char * host, uint8_t port), it does exactly what I do with NTP. It dynamically creates a UDP socket for DNS, connects to a server, and then releases that socket. That should work just fine, except that this bug exists. I'm certain that I can create a scenario with a http server that has a few connects() in it that will start failing on DNS resolution because of the bug. There would be no solution either, because you can't manually specify a socket for the DNS server to use. It just dynamically allocates one from the unused pool.

Sometimes I amaze myself! 8)

Remove the Udp.begin(8888) from setup, and use this checkTime function. How does it do? Works ok here.

void checkTime()
{
	if(!Udp.begin(8888)) {
          Serial.println("UDP fail");
          return;
        }

  	sendNTPpacket(Udp, timeServer); // send an NTP packet to a time server
	Serial.println("");
	ShowSockStatus();
	// wait to see if a reply is available
	delay(1000);  
	if ( Udp.parsePacket() ) {  
		// We've received a packet, read the data from it
		Udp.read(packetBuffer,NTP_PACKET_SIZE);  // read the packet into the buffer

		//the timestamp starts at byte 40 of the received packet and is four bytes,
		// or two words, long. First, esxtract the two words:

		unsigned long highWord = word(packetBuffer[40], packetBuffer[41]);
		unsigned long lowWord = word(packetBuffer[42], packetBuffer[43]);  
		// combine the four bytes (two words) into a long integer
		// this is NTP time (seconds since Jan 1 1900):
		unsigned long secsSince1900 = highWord << 16 | lowWord;  

		// now convert NTP time into everyday time:
		Serial.print("Unix time = ");
		// Unix time starts on Jan 1 1970. In seconds, that's 2208988800:
		const unsigned long seventyYears = 2208988800UL;     
		// subtract seventy years:
		unsigned long epoch = secsSince1900 - seventyYears;  
		// print Unix time:
		Serial.println(epoch);  
	}  
	else
		Serial.println("UDP FAIL!");
	Udp.stop();

}

Here's a much simpler example using the built in DNS library:

#include <SPI.h>
#include <Ethernet.h>
#include <EthernetUdp.h>
#include <utility/w5100.h>
#include "Dns.h"

void ShowSockStatus()
{
	for (int i = 0; i < MAX_SOCK_NUM; i++) {
		Serial.print("Socket#");
		Serial.print(i);
		uint8_t s = W5100.readSnSR(i);
		Serial.print(":0x");
		Serial.print(s,16);
		Serial.print(" ");
		Serial.print(W5100.readSnPORT(i));
		Serial.print(" D:");
		uint8_t dip[4];
		W5100.readSnDIPR(i, dip);
		for (int j=0; j<4; j++) {
			Serial.print(dip[j],10);
			if (j<3) Serial.print(".");
		}
		Serial.print("(");
		Serial.print(W5100.readSnDPORT(i));
		Serial.println(")");
	}
}

byte mac[] = {  0xDE, 0xAD, 0xBE, 0xEF, 0xFE, 0xED };

EthernetServer server(80);
IPAddress dnsserver(192,168,10,1);
IPAddress ip(192,168,10,20);
IPAddress gateway(192,168,10, 2);
IPAddress subnet(255, 255, 255, 0);

long timer;

void setup() {
	Serial.begin(9600);
	Ethernet.begin(mac, ip, dnsserver, gateway, subnet);
	delay(500);

	Serial.println("Start!");
	server.begin();
	ShowSockStatus();
	timer = millis();
}

void loop()
{ 
	//Check if a web client has attached.
	EthernetClient client = server.available();
	if (client) {
		Serial.println("new Client");
		ShowSockStatus();
		boolean currentLineIsBlank = true;
		while (client.connected()) {
			if (client.available()) {
				char c = client.read();
				Serial.print(c);
				if (c == '\n' && currentLineIsBlank) {
					client.stop();
				}
				if (c == '\n') {
					// you're starting a new line
					currentLineIsBlank = true;
				} 
				else if (c != '\r') {
					// you've gotten a character on the current line
					currentLineIsBlank = false;
				}
			}
		}
		// give the web browser time to receive the data
		delay(1);
		// close the connection:
		client.stop();
		Serial.println("client disconnected");
	}

	if ((millis() - timer) > 5000) {
		DNSClient dns;
		IPAddress remote_addr;
		dns.begin(dnsserver);
		if (dns.getHostByName("www.yahoo.com", remote_addr) == 1)
		{
			for (int i=0; i<4; i++) {
				Serial.print(remote_addr[i]);
				if (i!=3)
					Serial.print('.');
				else
					Serial.println("");
			}
		}
		else
			Serial.println("DNS FAIL!");
		timer = millis();
		ShowSockStatus();
	}
}

And the output

Start!
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#1:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#2:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
98.139.183.24
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#1:0x0 1030 D:192.168.10.1(53)
Socket#2:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
98.138.253.109
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#1:0x0 1024 D:192.168.10.1(53)
Socket#2:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
98.138.253.109
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#1:0x0 1024 D:192.168.10.1(53)
Socket#2:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
new Client
Socket#0:0x17 80 D:192.168.10.213(11298)
Socket#1:0x17 80 D:192.168.10.213(11299)
Socket#2:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.168.10.20
Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.31 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/26.0.1410.64 Safari/537.31
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3

client disconnected
98.139.183.24
Socket#0:0x0 1035 D:192.168.10.1(53)
Socket#1:0x17 80 D:192.168.10.213(11299)
Socket#2:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
98.138.253.109
Socket#0:0x0 1029 D:192.168.10.1(53)
Socket#1:0x17 80 D:192.168.10.213(11299)
Socket#2:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
98.139.183.24
Socket#0:0x0 1039 D:192.168.10.1(53)
Socket#1:0x0 80 D:192.168.10.213(11299)
Socket#2:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
new Client
Socket#0:0x17 80 D:192.168.10.213(11312)
Socket#1:0x14 80 D:192.168.10.213(11299)
Socket#2:0x17 80 D:192.168.10.213(11311)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.168.10.20
Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.31 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/26.0.1410.64 Safari/537.31
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3

client disconnected
98.138.253.109
Socket#0:0x17 80 D:192.168.10.213(11312)
Socket#1:0x14 80 D:192.168.10.213(11299)
Socket#2:0x0 1033 D:192.168.10.1(53)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
98.139.183.24
Socket#0:0x17 80 D:192.168.10.213(11312)
Socket#1:0x14 80 D:192.168.10.213(11299)
Socket#2:0x0 1028 D:192.168.10.1(53)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
98.138.253.109
Socket#0:0x17 80 D:192.168.10.213(11312)
Socket#1:0x14 80 D:192.168.10.213(11299)
Socket#2:0x0 1039 D:192.168.10.1(53)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
DNS FAIL!
Socket#0:0x0 1034 D:192.168.10.1(53)
Socket#1:0x14 80 D:192.168.10.213(11299)
Socket#2:0x0 1039 D:192.168.10.1(53)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
DNS FAIL!
Socket#0:0x0 1033 D:192.168.10.1(53)
Socket#1:0x14 80 D:192.168.10.213(11299)
Socket#2:0x0 1039 D:192.168.10.1(53)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)

Notice how it works right up till it tries to reuse socket #0 to do the DNS (which has previously been used as UDP/DNS and then TCP). Then it fails...

If I use a reliable dns server, I cannot replicate your error with my code. Both NTP and DNS work. Is 192.168.10.1 a good dns server? My NTP and DNS changes sockets (they both use the same socket) and has no problem. ??

Are you using the code I put in the message? There shouldn't be any NTP packets going across because there's nothing NTP related in that code.

It's a reliable DNS server. If I never browse to the web port on the Arduino then it'll sit there and poll forever with no issues. In fact it's been up polling for the past 3 hours and has not had a single failure. As soon as I browse to we web port though, it fails (well, I actually have to browse twice for it to happen).

Are you using the code I put in the message?

I am testing the code from your reply #16 now. I changed the network settings and dns server to mine, and have it resolving my local domain name instead of yahoo. It has not failed yet, despite the requests to the server and the "No data received" message.

When resolving yahoo, I got errors if I try to resolve the name too often, no matter if I loaded the webpage or not.

edit: This is after I removed my SD card from the shield slot. NTP, dhcp and dns have a problem if there is a card in the slot and not disabled or initialized correctly.

It has been running about an hour with several dozen requests to the server, and not one fail of either service.

Thanks Tim. I should have mentioned the SD card thing. I didn't include any initialization code to turn of the SD card.

I guess I'd love to see your output if you have it available...

I'm beginning to think that your setup is just not exhibiting the same things that mine is. Maybe there's a batch of 5100s that have bugs? Maybe it's my version of the Ethernet shield. (I've got a couple that I bought off eBay). I don't know. I've used two different shields with three different boards (2 megas and 1 Uno). I've got no idea why it seems so repeatable on my setup with very varied scenarios, but we can't seem to get yours to exhibit the same thing.

Give me a bit to setup the test again. I am testing the ethernet shield's dhcp client function. I think my router has a bug in the dhcp server service. I will replace my public ip with a phoney. I don't need any DoS attacks. I get enough, thanks.

Check back in a bit... :slight_smile:

Does seem odd that it would fail for a DNS request that only came once every 5 seconds. That's pretty far from a DoS. Anyway, I changed my code to use 4.2.2.1 public DNS. I posted it on the other thread...

I am concerned about DoS when publishing my public ip, and not because of this code. Here is my serial monitor display for a short run. It will go on for hours like this.

Start!
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#1:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#2:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
xx.xx.58.116
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#1:0x0 1024 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#2:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
xx.xx.58.116
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#1:0x0 1036 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#2:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
xx.xx.58.116
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#1:0x0 1031 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#2:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
new Client
Socket#0:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3691)
Socket#1:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3692)
Socket#2:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.168.2.2
Connection: keep-alive
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,/;q=0.8
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/537.31 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/26.0.1410.64 Safari/537.31
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3

client disconnected
xx.xx.58.116
Socket#0:0x0 1026 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#1:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3692)
Socket#2:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
new Client
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#1:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3692)
Socket#2:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3693)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.168.2.2
Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,/;q=0.8
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/537.31 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/26.0.1410.64 Safari/537.31
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3

client disconnected
xx.xx.58.116
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#1:0x0 1038 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#2:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3693)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
xx.xx.58.116
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#1:0x0 1034 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#2:0x0 80 D:192.168.1.254(3693)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
new Client
Socket#0:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3694)
Socket#1:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3695)
Socket#2:0x14 80 D:192.168.1.254(3693)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.168.2.2
Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,/;q=0.8
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/537.31 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/26.0.1410.64 Safari/537.31
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3

client disconnected
xx.xx.58.116
Socket#0:0x0 1029 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#1:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3695)
Socket#2:0x14 80 D:192.168.1.254(3693)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
new Client
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#1:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3695)
Socket#2:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3698)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.168.2.2
Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,/;q=0.8
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/537.31 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/26.0.1410.64 Safari/537.31
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3

client disconnected
xx.xx.58.116
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#1:0x0 1024 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#2:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3698)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
a
Socket#2:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
xx.xx.58.116
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#1:0x0 1024 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#2:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
xx.xx.58.116
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#1:0x0 1036 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#2:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
xx.xx.58.116
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#1:0x0 1031 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#2:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
new Client
Socket#0:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3691)
Socket#1:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3692)
Socket#2:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.168.2.2
Connection: keep-alive
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,/;q=0.8
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/537.31 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/26.0.1410.64 Safari/537.31
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3

client disconnected
xx.xx.58.116
Socket#0:0x0 1026 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#1:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3692)
Socket#2:0x14 80 D:0.0.0.0(0)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
new Client
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#1:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3692)
Socket#2:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3693)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.168.2.2
Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,/;q=0.8
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/537.31 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/26.0.1410.64 Safari/537.31
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3

client disconnected
xx.xx.58.116
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#1:0x0 1038 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#2:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3693)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
xx.xx.58.116
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#1:0x0 1034 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#2:0x0 80 D:192.168.1.254(3693)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
new Client
Socket#0:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3694)
Socket#1:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3695)
Socket#2:0x14 80 D:192.168.1.254(3693)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.168.2.2
Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,/;q=0.8
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/537.31 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/26.0.1410.64 Safari/537.31
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3

client disconnected
xx.xx.58.116
Socket#0:0x0 1029 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#1:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3695)
Socket#2:0x14 80 D:192.168.1.254(3693)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
new Client
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#1:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3695)
Socket#2:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3698)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)
GET / HTTP/1.1
Host: 192.168.2.2
Connection: keep-alive
Cache-Control: max-age=0
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,/;q=0.8
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1) AppleWebKit/537.31 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/26.0.1410.64 Safari/537.31
Accept-Encoding: gzip,deflate,sdch
Accept-Language: en-US,en;q=0.8
Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.3

client disconnected
xx.xx.58.116
Socket#0:0x14 80 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#1:0x0 1024 D:xx.xx.58.115(53)
Socket#2:0x17 80 D:192.168.1.254(3698)
Socket#3:0x0 0 D:0.0.0.0(0)

my 2 cents;-

UDP is a lightweight protocol that by design doesn't handle things like packet sequencing. It does not guarantee that your packets will arrive in order (It does not even guarantee that your packets will arrive at all.) .
Say send command set voltage=1 v, then set voltage=4 v, You might get 0v or 1v or 4v if default is 0v. TCP is a better choice if you want robust packet delivery and sequencing.
If you're limited to using UDP you would have to develop a method of identifying the out of sequence packets and resequencing them or request to resend, but for Arduino is tough task.

a lot people implement UDP with Arduino, I mean neither OP nor this thread please hold fire.

I guess either they drink too much Italian coffee or I drink too much, might be both. :stuck_out_tongue:

@sonnyyu: That is a good thought, but NTP, DNS, and DHCP use UDP. You really can't avoid it.

SurferTim:
@sonnyyu: That is a good thought, but NTP, DNS, and DHCP use UDP. You really can't avoid it.

I mean neither OP nor this thread please hold fire.

I'm not firing at you. :slight_smile: I'm just stating a fact. I am not fond of UDP either as a reliable transfer, but we are subjected to it through theses services.

Thanks, that's 100% definitive. You are not having the same issue as I am, although I have no idea why...

One thing I just found out was that if the TCP request comes from the same machine as the UDP destination goes to (i.e. if you run a WGET from the same router that's hosting your DNS server) the problem never happens (for me). It's almost like it's a IP->MAC arp issue. Odd. I'm going to delve into this a bit more before I bother anyone. Looking up W5100 and ARP I did come up with this: http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/129515-W5100-Sn_SR-undocumented-misfeature-bug Not sure if that's related though... I'll get to the bottom of this at some point...

Maybe you are right. Maybe the delay waiting for the response from the dns server is not long enough. That could cause the dns fail.

edit: Your test is still running on my Arduino. It has not missed a beat since I started it.
Just so you know...

Wow, OK. Still not to the bottom of this, but I just had a pretty big discovery. When I get the DNS failure, the packet actually goes to the wrong machine! In my example I posted the DNS server was outside my network, so it should have been sent to the gateway MAC address. However, with a packet capture I found that it actually ended up going to the same machine that my TCP request came from!!!

That's exactly why this isn't working right. For some reason the W5100 gets confused and doesn't update the IP->MAC port for that socket. I'm going to delve into this a bit more to see if I can get to the bottom of what's going on...

Some background information about NTP, DNS, and DHCP use UDP;-

DNS works on both TCP and UDP

DHCP works on UDP only

Its use is in a typical local area network (LAN). The packet sequencing is never problem.

NTP

It used work both TCP and UDP [RFC0793] , UDP/TCP Port 123 was previously assigned by IANA for NTP. The new [RFC5905] drop TCP support. Here is the reason;- "Reliable message delivery such as TCP [RFC0793] can actually make the delivered NTP packet less reliable since retries would increase the delay value and other errors." obviously implement correctly UDP client is needed to take care the issue.

Now the question is "What Arduino NTP client does ?"

That could be it. I just tried the same test using a remote dns server and my domain, and it crashed like the Hindenberg. :frowning:

Now I am back to a localnet dns server and it is ok.

@sonnyyu: No question there. Arduino NTP uses UDP.

SurferTim:
That could be it. I just tried the same test using a remote dns server and my domain, and it crashed like the Hindenberg. :frowning:

Now I am back to a localnet dns server and it is ok.

@sonnyyu: No question there. Arduino NTP uses UDP.

My fault, the complete question is;

What Arduino NTP client does to take care reliable NTP packet deliver?

This might hijack the thread, I might start new thread about it.