Layer 2 Multicasting problem on shut down system brings down all eepro100's on the net!!

[Robert Schwartz]

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Hi,

We are still diagnosing a major problem that has been occurring on our
network for the past several weeks, but I thought I'd get this info out
so that someone can either help us expedite a solution, or to help
someone else who may be having a similar problem. Here is what we know
so far

On occasion, after a linux box is halted (we've reproduced it on a Red
Hat 6.0 system running with the stock kernel 2.2.5-15(?)) but the power
remains on, the eepro100 card will start multicasting to mac
destination: 01:80:c2:00:00:01 an Ether type 8808 frame. This, in turn,
causes ALL other eepro100's on the network to pause transmitting,
effectively, crippling all network communications to/from ANY machine
with an eepro100 card on the network!!

Now, the machines have been told to halt, and display on the screen does
say the system can now be powered off, however it is at this point where
we have successfully reproduced this multicasting problem. We believe
that the card may either be left in a state that causes this strange
behavior either because of a bug in the firmware of the card, or perhaps
because the driver does not appear to reset the card upon shutdown.

To test this theory, we have made a small mod to the driver to force a
software reset of the card upon unloading of the driver. So far this
afternoon, that machine has been performing flawlessly (with over 10
shutdowns and no multicasts). We will let the machine run over night and
will try a few more tests with this new driver, before loading back the
original driver and recreating the problem. We will of course post back
to the group the modifications, once we're convinced it could be a fix.

Any help, comments or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-Rob



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