[vortex] 3C905C Hangs

[Karyl F. Stein]

Ruben,

Thanks for the reply.

> > Any ideas on what could be going on?
>
> No. Except that it might be either a PCI-related problem, or a
> network-problem, but probably not a driver-related problem.
>
> > Is it a flow control issue?
>
> Most certainly not.
>
> > mention is that these are RedHat 7.1 machines with kernel 2.4.3-12.  I'd
>
> Try to update to a more recent kernel like 2.4.9.

I'd rather save that one as a last resort.

> > If I run ping on the backup server to something else on the lan
> during the
> > "hang", I get some bursts of valid responses, but mostly "destination
> > unreachable".
>
> What does arp -v show during a 'hang' and during normal
> operation? route -v?
> Any ipchains on either machine? (You might be blocking ICMP's
> congestion-control when that's the case) netstat -ut? netstat -i?

I've attached the information requested below.  You'll notice the
(incomplete) line in the arp -vn output when not working.  That fluctuates
from a valid entry to (incomplete).  Doing a tcpdump will show bursts of arp
requests and then delayed replies.  That's like the ping bursts.  The
sequence numbers all come in, but in blocks of around 15 with a 15 - 20
second pause between bursts.  I turned off all ipchains rules, although icmp
is not blocked at all on the interface.

> I'm speculating that your problem might be a 'normal' network-problem.
>
> Does the transfer resume after a long time waiting? (ie: 5
> minutes or more)

Nope.  I guess the transfer doesn't totally die, but it only gets a few
packets through during the "burst", so it's effectively dead.  It doesn't
speed up even if I let it sit for a couple hours.  I have to ifconfig eth0
down and then ifconfig eth0 up to get it going again.

***** WHEN WORKING *****
# arp -v
Address			HWtype	HWaddress	    Flags Mask		  Iface
www-1.xenos.net        	ether   00:02:44:06:4E:32   C
eth0
mail.xenos.net         	ether   00:02:44:0C:61:84   C
eth0
fw-1.xenos.net         	ether   00:02:44:0C:61:85   C
eth0
Entries: 3	Skipped: 0	Found: 3

# route -v
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use
Iface
192.168.2.0     *               255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
127.0.0.0       *               255.0.0.0       U     0      0        0 lo
default         fw-1.xenos.net  0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0

# netstat -ut
Active Internet connections (w/o servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State
tcp    33808      0 backup.xenos.net:1026   www-1.xenos.net:ssh
ESTABLISHED

# netstat -i
Kernel Interface table
Iface   MTU Met    RX-OK RX-ERR RX-DRP RX-OVR    TX-OK TX-ERR TX-DRP TX-OVR
Flg
eth0   1500   0   367162      0      0      0    49517      0      0      0
BRU
lo    16436   0       18      0      0      0       18      0      0      0
LRU
***** END WHEN WORKING *****

***** WHEN NOT WORKING *****
# arp -vn
Address			HWtype	HWaddress	    Flags Mask		  Iface
192.168.2.146          	        (incomplete)
eth0
192.168.2.145          	ether   00:02:44:0C:61:84   C
eth0
192.168.2.144          	ether   00:02:44:0C:61:85   C
eth0
Entries: 3	Skipped: 0	Found: 3

# netstat -utn
Active Internet connections (w/o servers)
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address           Foreign Address         State
tcp        0      0 192.168.2.149:1026      192.168.2.146:22
ESTABLISHED

# netstat -in
Kernel Interface table
Iface   MTU Met    RX-OK RX-ERR RX-DRP RX-OVR    TX-OK TX-ERR TX-DRP TX-OVR
Flg
eth0   1500   0   512915      0      0      0    69151      0      0      0
BRU
lo    16436   0       21      0      0      0       21      0      0      0
LRU

# route -vn
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use
Iface
192.168.2.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
127.0.0.0       0.0.0.0         255.0.0.0       U     0      0        0 lo
0.0.0.0         192.168.2.144   0.0.0.0         UG    0      0        0 eth0
***** END WHEN NOT WORKING *****