From Bugzilla Helper: User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.3a) Gecko/20021207 Phoenix/0.5 Description of problem: The updated initscripts package from RHBA-2003:341-09 causes a kernel panic and halt when running 'ifup eth0'. It doesn't matter if I bring the interface up manually after boot or configure it to come up on boot - it causes the panic/halt every time. The network card is a NetGear GA621 Gigabit fiber card, using the ns83820 driver. If I leave all other packages updated (including ethtool, which is also included in RHBA-2003:341-09) and revert to initscripts-6.47.2-1.1, the problem goes away. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): initscripts-6.47.6-1 How reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. boot the box with the updated initscripts package 2. bring the interface up with 'ifup eth0' -OR- configure the interface to come up automatically on boot. Additional info:
What happens if you comment out the call to ethtool in /sbin/ifup?
Works great, less filling. ;-) ethtool was called/evaluated in three places, I commented them out. Oddly enough, if run ifdown I must unload the module before running ifup again. Or rather, ifup runs and the interface appears to be up, but I have no connectivity. I don't know if this is because of the fiber interface or not, but it seemed odd to me. BTW - this server isn't in production yet, so if any official errata RPM is forthcoming, it doesn't need to be right away - at least not for me. Happy New Year!
Assinging to kernel, appears to be a driver bug.
I am not sure I understand the response to Bill... did commenting out the calls to ethtool in 'ifup' fix the problem?
Yes, commenting out the calls to ethtool in 'ifup' fixed the problem. Sorry if this wasn't clear from my previous comment. I haven't tried ifup with ethtool enabled using the recently released 2.4.9-e.35 kernel, but I can if you like. (I was using 2.4.9-e.34 when I reported the problem.)
Please retry with the new set of U1 errata which is being released very soon.
Do you mean U3 errata? The box is running RHEL ES v2.1, not v3 and IIRC, update-2 for v2.1 has been out for some time. BTW - I am experiencing problems running vmware-gsx server on this box when using the GA621/ns83820 card/driver, but if I install a somewhat older GA620 card (using the acenic driver) the problem goes away. Let me know if details will help. Thanks!
Still experiencing the same problem with a clean install of U3 (with or without errata updates installed). -Eric
To be honest there is nothing at all suspicious or buggy in the ns83820 ethtool ioctl handling, in fact it is quite simple code only handling two ethtool commands. Can you get an OOPS log from when the bug triggers and attach it to this report? Thanks.
This bug is filed against RHEL2.1, which is in maintenance phase. During the maintenance phase, only security errata and select mission critical bug fixes will be released for enterprise products. Since this bug does not meet that criteria, it is now being closed. For more information of the RHEL errata support policy, please visit: http://www.redhat.com/security/updates/errata/ If you feel this bug is indeed mission critical, please contact your support representative. You may be asked to provide detailed information on how this bug is affecting you.