Description: We are experiencing intermittent problems with HP xw9400 models after the update (and also when kickstarted directly with 4.8). The problem is that after an update, sometimes the network does not come up. The link lights are on and flashing, but it can't pass any traffic. If the network cable is unplugged and plugged back in, it starts to work. A reboot after the update will almost always fail to bring up the network. After a power cycle, the network generally comes up on boot, but not always. The problem seems to be most pronounced when connected to a Cisco core switch with GB. The same systems had no problems previously on 4.7, and the exact same system, using the same network port, and kickstart it with RHEL5.3 doesn't have any issues. The same system which fails to initialize the network at boot time will reliably bring up the network during the boot process if we insert a 100Mbps switch in between it and the Cisco.
Event posted on 10-30-2009 10:45am BRT by fbl I started another brew build with that patch[1] applied, it's here: http://brewweb.devel.redhat.com/brew/taskinfo?taskID=2054674 The other previous patches were removed in this new build. A CVS diff between -78 and -89 releases shows the following: + /* restart auto negotiation, power down phy */ + mii_control = mii_rw(dev, np->phyaddr, MII_BMCR, MII_READ); +- mii_control |= (BMCR_ANRESTART | BMCR_ANENABLE); ++ mii_control |= (BMCR_ANRESTART | BMCR_ANENABLE | BMCR_PDOWN); + if (mii_rw(dev, np->phyaddr, MII_BMCR, mii_control)) { + return PHY_ERROR; + } So, release -89 started to power down PHY. thanks, Flavio [1] http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=commit;h=5a9a8e32ebe269c71d8d3e78f9435fe7729f38e9 Internal Status set to 'Waiting on Support' This event sent from IssueTracker by fbl issue 358551
Created attachment 366813 [details] Proposed patch Here is proposed patch for RHEL4's forcedeth. It's practically the backport of the latest upstream driver from Linus. It fixes the situation with PHY powered down, also includes fixes several race conditions, NAPI fixes, support for MCP89. There are kernel packages for testing at: http://people.redhat.com/ivecera/rhel-4-ivtest/ Could you please test them? My internal testing on xw9400 from RHTS has not show any problem.
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux maintenance release. Product Management has requested further review of this request by Red Hat Engineering, for potential inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Update release for currently deployed products. This request is not yet committed for inclusion in an Update release.
*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 532593 ***