ppp0 Drops on occasion and is replaced with eth0 [SOLVED]

[newklear]

Good Day all

I have two NIC's one as eth0 which connects to a router and is used for hard connections, eth1 connects to another router used for the WLAN.

My modem connects straight to the computer running Squid and Shorewall via USB(/dev/ttyUSB0 | /dev/modem).
On bootup only the ppp0 is enabled, so I manually open console and "screen wvdial neotel" then the ppp0 turns green and becomes active.

Then I enable the eth0 and eth1.. what I have noticed is that on occassion the ppp0 drops and switches to eth0(with loss of internet connectivity) and my only fix is to reboot and startup in sequence again.

Here are my network configs:
[terran@wright network-scripts]$ cat ifcfg-ppp0

Code: [Select]

DEVICE=ppp0
BOOTPROTO=none
ONBOOT=yes
METRIC=50
USERCTL=yes
HARDFLOWCTL=yes
DEFABORT=yes
RETRYTIMEOUT=60
PAPNAME=0110214914@neotel.co.za
LINESPEED=115200
MODEMPORT=/dev/modem
DEBUG=yes
ESCAPECHARS=no
INITSTRING=ATZ
DISCONNECTTIMEOUT=5
PERSIST=yes
DEFROUTE=yes
[terran@wright network-scripts]$ cat ifcfg-eth0

Code: [Select]

DEVICE=eth0
BOOTPROTO=static
IPADDR=192.168.1.1
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.1.0
BROADCAST=192.168.1.255
GATEWAY=192.168.1.1
ONBOOT=no
METRIC=10
MII_NOT_SUPPORTED=no
USERCTL=yes
DNS1=41.160.0.36
DNS2=41.160.128.12
RESOLV_MODS=no
IPV6INIT=no
IPV6TO4INIT=no
ACCOUNTING=yes
[terran@wright network-scripts]$ cat ifcfg-eth1

Code: [Select]

DEVICE=eth1
BOOTPROTO=static
IPADDR=192.168.0.1
NETMASK=255.255.255.0
NETWORK=192.168.0.0
BROADCAST=192.168.1.255
ONBOOT=no
METRIC=10
MII_NOT_SUPPORTED=no
USERCTL=yes
DNS1=41.160.0.36
DNS2=41.160.128.12
RESOLV_MODS=no
IPV6INIT=no
IPV6TO4INIT=no
ACCOUNTING=yes
Two Questions Please:
1. How can I prevent the ppp0 randomly dying and switching to eth0 on occassion ?
2. Will installing nscd (name service cache daemon) assist with general response times if I have already setup Squid as a intercepting/cache proxy ?

Thank you very much for your time and great weekend all

SOLUTION:
1. I merely switched cables with etho > eth1 and vice versa. Connection has been stable for two days now with no connection drops. I also noticed that one NIC is 100mb and the other was 10mb. The problem could also have been caused by my ISP.
2. Still not sure what influence using nscd on a intercepting/cache proxy will have.