Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1999 21:17:34 -0500 (EST) From: Bill Paul <wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> To: jbarbee@singular.com (John Barbee) Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: !!! pn0: watchdog timeout Message-ID: <199904020217.VAA12556@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu> In-Reply-To: <4.1.19990401153009.00a23610@server7.singular.com> from "John Barbee" at Apr 1, 99 03:36:42 pm
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Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, John Barbee had to walk into mine and say: > I just sent a message not too long ago about weird watchdog timeout messages. > > I thought those were just harmless messages but I was wrong. > Whenever someone from any windows machine tries to copy files onto an SMB > share of this machine, they get an error box that says, "couldn't complete > due to a network error." At the very same time, these watchdog messages > show up. The watchdog timeout means that after the PNIC (that's the name of the ethernet chip, BTW) was told to transmit a packet, it never generated an interrupt confirming that the packet was sent. The driver sets a timeout of 5 seconds after it issues a transmit commant, and if the chip doesn't interrupt before then, it issues the message and resets the chip > What is going on? Is the the ethernet card's driver bad or is the watchdog > feature interfering with the operating system? First of all, you didn't tell me what version of FreeBSD you have, you didn't say in what kind of machine the card is installed, and you didn't say exactly what brand/model of ethernet card you have. It's important that you do so because I can't see your machine from here. The cause of the errors could be one of a few things: - The PCI BIOS in your machine assigned the ethernet card the same IRQ as some other device in the system, and this is causing the driver to miss interrupts somehow. PCI devices are supposed to be able to share IRQs correctly, but it's possible there's a bug somewhere else that's causing this to fail. If you type '/sbin/dmesg | more' you should see what IRQs were assigned to which devices. If the pn0 device has the same IRQ as some other device, you should try to convince the BIOS to assign it a different one. - You have crummy or incorrectly terminated cables. There's a right way to terminate ethernet cables and there's an amazing amount of people in the world who don't know what it is. If you're using 100Mbps (you didn't say!) then use category 5 cabling. - You have the pn0 interface set for a mode that doesn't match the hub or host that it's plugged into. You can set the modes like this: # ifconfig pn0 media 10baseT/UTP mediaopt half-duplex # ifconfig pn0 media 100baseTX mediaopt half-duplex # ifconfig pn0 media 10baseT/UTP mediaopt full-duplex # ifconfig pn0 media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex # ifconifg pn0 media autoselect The speed and suplex setting _MUST_ _MATCH_ that of the device on the other end of the cable. If you have two hosts plugged in back to back with a crossover cable, then the autonegotiation can choose the wrong mode sometimes. Force both sides to match. If the card is plugged into a hub (i.e. a repeated) then it should be set for 10Mbps half-duplex (or maybe 100Mbps half-duplex if it's a fast ethernet hub). If it's plugged into a switch, then the autoneg should select the right mode. If it doesn't manually program the switch and the card to agree. -Bill -- ============================================================================= -Bill Paul (212) 854-6020 | System Manager, Master of Unix-Fu Work: wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu | Center for Telecommunications Research Home: wpaul@skynet.ctr.columbia.edu | Columbia University, New York City ============================================================================= "It is not I who am crazy; it is I who am mad!" - Ren Hoek, "Space Madness" ============================================================================= To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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