Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2000 12:59:11 -0400 (EDT) From: Chris BeHanna <behanna@zbzoom.net> To: FreeBSD-Stable <stable@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: xl driver again? Re: mbuf leakage on 4.1.1-STABLE Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0010121253390.1730-100000@topperwein.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: <20001012094914.F272@fw.wintelcom.net>
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On Thu, 12 Oct 2000, Alfred Perlstein wrote:
> [snip about possible mbuf leakage/starvation]
>
> Can we get a cocensus about which ethernet card is in use here?
3Com 3C905B (xl) in my case.
> I've got several machines running fxp (intel etherexpress 100)
> running under high loads without a single problem. I have a single
> host with 'xl' that seems to be having the _exact_ same symptoms
> as you guys are describing:
>
> Oct 9 15:24:38 xxx /kernel: xl0: no memory for rx list -- packet dropped!
> Oct 9 15:25:10 xxx last message repeated 102 times
> Oct 9 15:27:11 xxx last message repeated 473 times
> Oct 9 15:30:08 xxx last message repeated 772 times
Yes, this is exactly the problem I get.
> ~ % netstat -m
> 131/4864 mbufs in use:
> 129 mbufs allocated to data
> 2 mbufs allocated to packet headers
> 128/4608/4608 mbuf clusters in use (current/peak/max)
> 9824 Kbytes allocated to network (2% in use)
> 1400 requests for memory denied
> 0 requests for memory delayed
> 0 calls to protocol drain routines
>
> This leads me to believe that the driver is somehow tying down all
> the mbufs for an extended period of time. If this problem still
> hasn't been addressed in 4.1.1 it should be of concern as 'xl' is
> supposed to be only second to 'fxp' in terms of quality and speed.
>
> The machine will recover after several minutes (without reboot),
> but it's down long enough to trip our monitoring software that does
> HTTP requests to the box.
I haven't let mine sit to try to recover. I notice that I get no
response at the console, and push the button. Next time, I'll let it
sit awhile and see if it gets better.
> I'll also note that the problem seems to be quite interesting as
> I'm having nearly the exact same thing happen to me, basically the
> card is fine for 2-3 days after reboot, then *BOOM* I run out of
> mbufs, however mine does recover after a couple of minutes.
Yup.
> This problem has plagued the xl driver for nearly two years, If
> there's anything I can do to help diagnose where the problem is
> I'll be the first to try to provide any information requested.
Ditto. I can report that I've seen this problem both with my
custom kernel and with GENERIC (although I'll admit that I added
IPFIREWALL to GENERIC for my particular test).
> xl0: <3Com 3c905B-TX Fast Etherlink XL> rev 0x00 int a irq 12 on pci0.15.0
> xl0: Ethernet address: 00:10:4b:36:df:74
> xl0: autoneg complete, link status good (full-duplex, 100Mbps)
Exact came card I have.
> Thanks for any assistance, I sure need it. :(
>
> My solution so far has been to only get the fxp cards and replace
> any xl's that I come across.
I'm picking up a Netgear FA310TX (should be delivered any day
now). At $20, it's cheap enough to see if it works any better for me.
--
Chris BeHanna
Software Engineer (at yourfit.com)
behanna@zbzoom.net
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