[realtek] bug found in driver

[Jeff Garzik]

Chris Leavoy wrote:
> There is a bug in the rtl8139.c driver that causes the interface to stop
> responding. When the network card (mine is a dlink DFE-530tx+) is put
> under load, after a few seconds the card will no longer recieve
> packets.   [...]

> i repeated this around 20 times for each different driver version. and
> each time, the output was similar to the above.  So far i have tried:
> rtl8139.c:v1.04 9/22/98
> rtl8139.c:v1.09 4/08/2000
> rtl8139.c:v1.10 5/29/2000
> rtl8139.c:v1.11 7/14/2000 (rebooted instead of freezing eth0)

This occurs in all versions of the driver I've tested.  My 8139too
driver in kernel 2.4.x minimizes this case for some chip revisions, but
doesn't solve the bug completely either.

I have a feeling it is incomplete handling of one or both RxFifoOverflow
and TxErr errors, causing the "freeze" which appears not only in the
Linux drivers, but the OpenBSD driver as well.

	Jeff




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Jeff Garzik              |
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