3c59x v0.99L questions

[Paul Claessen]

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********

On 2/19/00 at 4:17 PM Dave Wreski wrote:

>Hi all.  I'm currently using the 0.99L driver with two 3c905C boards and a
>3c905B board in a firewall on 2.2.14 x86. When the system boots, it
>detects and sets all three boards full-duplex, but after a while falls
>back to half-duplex.

Hi Dave,

I don't really have an answer to your email, but I DO have
a question: Every now and then I see messages from
people who claim the same thing you reported in your 
message: that the network 'falls back' to half duplex?
>From a technical point of view I have no idea how such
a thing could happen. So my question is: How did you
actually NOTICE that it fell back to half duplex? 
Leds on nic and/or switch? Or through some other method?


>Restarting networking doesn't fix the problem.  If I force the board into
>full-duplex mode, will it stay?  

Unless you have a broken nic, it will xmit in any mode you tell 
it to! Even if that would take down the rest of the network.

>I ask instead of simply trying it because
>there must be some reason it dropped out of full-duplex, and hoped to find
>that reason.
>
>After a while, I repeatedly see the following:
>
>Feb 19 16:12:56 outpost kernel: eth1: Transmit error, Tx status register
>82. 
>Feb 19 16:13:28 outpost last message repeated 26 times
>
>What is the reason for this?  eth0 and eth2 are crossover cables, and
>don't exhibit this problem. eth1 is connected to a "switching hub", which
>is dumb switch, I suppose.


Another question: What is a dumb switch? I'd say hub's (without the
'switching' denominator) are dumb. Switches are actually pretty clever.
And since you're using full duplex, this must be a switch and not a 
'dumb' hub (since you can't uses full duplex on hubs).


>Also, I read that there is a security vulnerability with this version?
>Apparently if you send 100Mb of data on a 100mbs link it locks the board
>and networking?

Not sure I understand what you mean! If you send a certain amount
of data (100 Mb), then after this amount is reached, the driver locks up?
EXACTLY 100 Mb? Always? Sounds pretty weird to me. 
Also, if this IS the case, then that would be a very serious bug, 
but not a security issue.


Kind Regards,
Paul

>The development version at Donald's site doesn't compile with 2.2.14.
>
>Thanks,
>Dave
>
>
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