channel bonding rtl8139 works??

Wed Sep 5 09:11:12 PDT 2001

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I've been running my tests/personal cluster with rtl8139's more 
than a year without problems. But recently I have been having a lot of 
troubles with the nics: locks, bad network response, etc..

Let's see, two things have changed: I've upgraded to 2.4.x series of kernels 
(2.4.9, previously running 2.2.17) and I've been working in different fields: 
original use was crypto related stuff, very little network activity. Now I 
also perform some video proccessing, wich is somewhat the opposite: large 
ammounts of time (days) with almost 100% network activity, a lot of nfs 
reads&writes, etc... 

It might be a kernel issue, didn't have time to investigate yet

Cheers
Pedro

On Wednesday 05 September 2001 11:34, Eric Kuhnke wrote:
> In my experience, the Realtek 8139 is the worst modern network controller
> on the planet.  It's the cheapest available, and commonly found on $65
> generic (ie: PC Chips) celeron motherboards.  Sometimes it completely
> refuses to autodetect speed and duplex of a connection.  You really do get
> what you pay for...
>
> I second Robert's comment on the 3C905C-TX NIC, which is an excellent
> card.  They can be had for under $30 if you look around.  The Intel 82559
> is also good, as evidenced by its use in high end Supermicro Serverworks
> III-HE chipset motherboards.
>
>
> Eric Kuhnke
> Lead Engineer / Operations Manager
> Fnord Datacenter Systems Inc.
> eric at fnordsystems.com
> www.fnordsystems.com
> voice: +1-360-527-3301 fax: +1-360-647-0752
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: beowulf-admin at beowulf.org [mailto:beowulf-admin at beowulf.org]On
> Behalf Of Robert G. Brown
> Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 3:39 AM
> To: << Dragon >>
> Cc: beowulf at beowulf.org
> Subject: Re: channel bonding rtl8139 works??
>
> On Mon, 3 Sep 2001, <<   Dragon  >> wrote:
> >   Hi, does any body know if the RTL-8139 kernel module for the KNE120TX
> > works with channel bonding??
> >
> >  I channel bonded 3 KNE120tx cards on 2 computers (3 cards per system)
>
> and
>
> > the comunication between them is very slow, I don't know if the problem
>
> is
>
> > in the rtl8139 kernel module (Red Hat 6.2)
>
> I don't know about channel bonding per se, but the RTL8139 NIC is Dark
> Evil.  In my opinion, of course: YMMV, caveat emptor, I may be crazy
> (some would say there is little doubt:-), standard disclaimers etc.
>
> Still, my own experience:  It is one of the few cards with which I can
> still consistently crash a linux box currently in my possesion when I
> whack it with a very heavy packet stream.  I should note in saying this
> that this is with the current RH 7.1 kernel with its "stolen" 8139too
> driver, not Don's, although many kernel revisions ago I managed to crash
> boxes with two RTL8139's with Don's driver as well.
>
> You should connect to the scyld website and visit the rtl8139 page and
> read the notes there.  I'd have to say that even if your particular
> implementation of the 8139 is more stable than my own (maybe Kingston
> did a better job of engineering the NICs than my no-name mfr, or maybe
> you're using Don's driver already and it actually works stably where the
> 8139too dies) it is a relatively poor choice for a beowulf NIC.  Even
> when I run just one card at a time (and cannot crash the system) the
> card seems to choke up under a heavy packet load and actually slow down
> to a crawl.
>
> Crush.  Kill.  Destroy.  Choose another card.
>
> They are more expensive, but 3c905's do PXE and WOL and can save you the
> cost of a floppy or CD-ROM (per node) for the original install.  They
> have MUCH better latency and bw numbers in my tests -- better than even
> midrange cards that DON'T really suck (e.g. PNIC based cards).
>
>    rgb
>
> >  Does any body know which kernel module can I use for the KNE120TX that
> > will support channel bonding??
> >
> >  I have a cluster bonded with KNE100TX cards using the Tulip kernel
>
> module
>
> > and they work fine.
> >
> >  Any help is appreciated.
> >
> >
> >  Thanks.
> >    Raul A. Gonzalez Olimon
> >
> >    al303917 at vigia.ens.uabc.mx
> >
> >    Universidad Autonoma de Baja California
> >
> >    Mexico.
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org
> > To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit
>
> http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
>
>
> --
> Robert G. Brown	                       http://www.phy.duke.edu/~rgb/
> Duke University Dept. of Physics, Box 90305
> Durham, N.C. 27708-0305
> Phone: 1-919-660-2567  Fax: 919-660-2525     email:rgb at phy.duke.edu
>
>
>
>
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