problems with ethernet interface

[Steve Dyer]

In article <12275 at steinmetz.ge.com> dixon at control.steinmetz.ge.com (walt dixon) writes:
>You can recover from this condition using ifconfig. "ifconfig ae0 up" will
>bring the network back up; one can also write a program to turn the network
>back on.

In my experience, "ifconfig ae0 up" was a no-op.  Programs complained
"network down" anyway.  Someone else placed the line
ifconfig ae0 down; ifconfig ae0 up
for cron to execute every 5 minutes or so.  I haven't tried this yet; perhaps
explicitly turning off the software state of the interface toggles some
bit which allows the interface to be reset.

If this is as widespread as the comments I see here and the letters
I've received in the past few days, this is a major lose.  How about
a comment from Apple folk who are otherwise so diligent in fending off
meta-rumors?  Prevalence, workarounds, ideas of when this will be fixed?
---
"The network IS the computer..."

Steve Dyer