Whole network freezes and systems get unknown IPs

[siddapur]

Today I had some strange experience. All my collegues started complaining that their system is not getting internet connection. I went to server room and saw that all lights in switches are blinking veryfast. At the same time I went to some systems and typed IPCONFIG . But the systems had taken IP address which are not in our DHCP range at all. I doubted there is some system acting as DHCP. But all our pcs except 1 DHCP server are XP. Then I found that one system was hanged. I removed that system from the network. Immidiately every thing went fine. Switch lights started blinking normal. and all systems came in network as soon as I renewed the IP.
Is it because of any new Virus or some system is supplying dynamic IPs from out side throug that system. But all the system in our premises are local to our network. They donot have any public (registered ) IPs

Please tell me if somebody has faced this problem erlier.

Regards
Sadguru

 

[2ffat]

Kinda sounds like your system has been turned into a zombie system. This is where one machine is taken over an begins to attack others. Normally this is done over the internet in order to compromise other systems.

I suspect, however, that the more like problem is that one machine has a problem. Maybe a corrupt file or a NIC going bad.

Either way, I would very carefully look at that one machine.


James P. Cottingham
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[sup]To determine how long it will take to write and debug a program, take your best estimate, multiply that by two, add one, and convert to the next higher units.[/sup]

 

[criticalUpdate]

were the addresses in the 169.x.x.x range? if so it just means that they couldn't see the dhcp server.


Microsoft boxes will default to that if they are unable to lease an address.

Jeff