Bug 918393 - Network freeze with Atheros LAN chip on kernels 3.8.0/3.8.1
Summary: Network freeze with Atheros LAN chip on kernels 3.8.0/3.8.1
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED ERRATA
Alias: None
Product: Fedora
Classification: Fedora
Component: kernel
Version: 18
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
high
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Andy Gospodarek
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL:
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2013-03-06 07:24 UTC by George Petasis
Modified: 2014-06-29 23:04 UTC (History)
11 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2013-04-15 12:49:04 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description George Petasis 2013-03-06 07:24:02 UTC
Description of problem:
There is aproblem with the Fedora kernel updates of 3.8.x: the driver for the Atheros LAN chip (atl1c). After a while (from 30 minutes to a few hours) the kernel starts logging errors like "DMA: Out of SW-IOMMU space for XXXX bytes" on the device, the performance of the network degrates and finally stops.
You have to reboot the machine to get it working again.

It seems that there is a fix for this in the kernel, that will appear in 3.8.3 (according to my understaning). But what will be done in between with the fedora updates, where 3.8.1 got installed in my system?

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
Fedora 18 kernel 3.8.1.

How reproducible:
Use the network for a while in a pc with the Atheros lan chip.

Steps to Reproduce:
1.
2.
3.
  
Actual results:
Network stops

Expected results:
Network does not stop

Additional info:

Comment 1 Eli Wapniarski 2013-03-15 05:19:17 UTC
Same problem here

Comment 2 Andy Gospodarek 2013-03-15 14:58:05 UTC
(In reply to comment #0)
> Description of problem:
> There is aproblem with the Fedora kernel updates of 3.8.x: the driver for
> the Atheros LAN chip (atl1c). After a while (from 30 minutes to a few hours)
> the kernel starts logging errors like "DMA: Out of SW-IOMMU space for XXXX
> bytes" on the device, the performance of the network degrates and finally
> stops.
> You have to reboot the machine to get it working again.
> 
> It seems that there is a fix for this in the kernel, that will appear in
> 3.8.3 (according to my understaning).

Do you have any more information about this patch?  I took a quick look at the web interface for 3.8-stable and did not see any patches that seemed to modify the atl1c driver.  I'm cloning the git tree now in case I missed it, but more information about this specific patch would be helpful.

Comment 3 George Petasis 2013-03-15 18:40:47 UTC
Unfortunately no, I haven't stored the pages I have read about it.
Does this e-mail provide any useful information?

http://www.spinics.net/lists/stable/msg01076.html

commit 7cb08d7f3a5ea6131f4f243c2080530ac41cb293
 Author: Huang, Xiong <xiong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
 Date:   Tue Feb 19 07:23:09 2013 +0000

     atl1c: restore buffer state

     in the previous commit : f1f220ea1dda078, the BUSY state of buffer is wrongly
     deleted. this patch just restore it.

     Signed-off-by: xiong <xiong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
     Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Comment 4 George Petasis 2013-03-15 18:46:40 UTC
And I think I have read about the patch not applied in kernel 3.8.2 here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1132477
Comment 44, 48 & 49.

But I know nothing about kernel bugs, so I cannot verify any of these comments.

Comment 5 Andy Gospodarek 2013-03-15 19:19:31 UTC
(In reply to comment #3)
> Unfortunately no, I haven't stored the pages I have read about it.
> Does this e-mail provide any useful information?
> 
> http://www.spinics.net/lists/stable/msg01076.html
> 
> commit 7cb08d7f3a5ea6131f4f243c2080530ac41cb293
>  Author: Huang, Xiong <xiong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>  Date:   Tue Feb 19 07:23:09 2013 +0000
> 
>      atl1c: restore buffer state
> 
>      in the previous commit : f1f220ea1dda078, the BUSY state of buffer is
> wrongly
>      deleted. this patch just restore it.
> 
>      Signed-off-by: xiong <xiong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>      Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <davem@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

That is helpful.  Thank you!

Comment 6 Eli Wapniarski 2013-03-18 05:19:32 UTC
Problem persists with 3.8.3 :(

Comment 7 Matthias Runge 2013-03-18 11:03:19 UTC
I tried a 3.9 kernel from f19. It seems, that fixed the issue, though that kernel has debugging enabled and thus feels slooow.

Comment 8 Michael Class 2013-03-21 14:44:45 UTC
Hello,

it looks like that patch for this issue finally made it into 3.8.4 kernel. I have tested now with 3.8.4-201.fc18.x86_64 and the issue did not appear any more for me. (after 2,5hrs of testing)

Cheers,
Michael

Comment 9 George Petasis 2013-04-13 16:32:56 UTC
Yes, I also think that it has been fixed in recent kernels.
The bug should be closed.

Comment 10 Eli Wapniarski 2013-04-13 17:48:24 UTC
Laptop is in the shop currently so I cannot confirm one way or the other... So I will trust your experience

:)

Comment 11 George Petasis 2013-04-13 18:07:52 UTC
Well, the pc is network-stable for many days now, with kernel 3.8.5.
I cannot complain... :-)


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