[Linuxha-users] Re: Netgear 1Gbps network card and mii-tool

[Simon Edwards]

Hello Michael,
	My aim is to include ethtool in a later 0.8.x release of Linuxha.net.
Mii-diag was included since it is more efficient, but does not support
1Gbit cards - as I found out myself recently!

	I can't really recommend particular cards since those I have cost my
£20 each and still manage to handle data at 30Mbytes/second - certainly
enough for me!

	I would go on the advice they give of the SL (Scientific Linux) list I
suppose.  However Linuxha.net 0.8.3 when it comes out in the next few
days might not include ethtool support, but will certainly handle your
configuration - it simply won't try to perform link status monitoring on
the 1Gbit network cards.

Regards,
Simon.

	

On Tue, 2005-02-15 at 10:16 +1000, Michael Mansour wrote:
> Hi Simon,
> 
> I also asked the same query on the SL list (RHEL people) and the following is 
> what they had to say:
> 
> "
> Well the first thing I'd say is that the realtek chipset's are terrible
> if you really want performance. They don't do any packet header
> processing or other tcp hardware offloading, causing your CPU to take
> the brunt of the packet load (with gigabit this is bad).
> 
> I would recommend Broadcom or Intel based gigabit cards.
> 
> Regardless of this fact, mii-tool doesn't support reading out gigabit
> link status. It'll give you a link up status with 100FD for 1000FD cards
> linked at 1000FD with flow control enabled.
> 
> I know it at least reports on the broadcom and intel based cards with a
> link up status.
> 
> Otherwise, I think you might need to find another tool to get real link
> status out of a gigabit nic.
> 
> P.S. the tool you're looking for is ethtool. 
> 
> mii-tool is obsolete.
> "
> 
> So I'm going to try and get Intel cards and use those. The link UP status is 
> enough for linuxha.net to do its monitoring yes?
> 
> Michael.
> 
> > Hello Michael,
> > 	Running Linuxha.net with cards that do not support the relevant 
> > hooks for the mii-tool is not a problem... However, if you wish to 
> > have IP failover under 0.8.3 and above (when it comes out - soon!) 
> > the cards on the network in question are best being supported by mii-
> > tool.
> > 
> > 	In your situation you would get fail-over when physical link 
> > problems occurred on the 100Mbit/sec cards, but not on the 1Gbit/sec 
> > cards.
> > 
> > Regards,
> > Simon.
> > 
> > On Mon, 2005-02-14 at 10:09 +1000, Michael Mansour wrote:
> > > Hi Simon,
> > > 
> > > As discussed earlier, I have purchased 2x Netgear Gigabit cards:
> > > 
> > > http://www.netgear.com/products/details/GA311.php
> > > 
> > > On boot these show up as:
> > > 
> > > r8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver 1.2 loaded
> > > r8169: PCI device 00:0f.0: unknown chip version, assuming RTL-8169
> > > r8169: PCI device 00:0f.0: TxConfig = 0x4000000
> > > divert: allocating divert_blk for eth2
> > > eth2: Identified chip type is 'RTL-8169'.
> > > eth2: RealTek RTL8169 Gigabit Ethernet at 0xxxxxxxxx, xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx, 
> IRQ 4
> > > eth2: Auto-negotiation Enabled.
> > > eth2: 1000Mbps Full-duplex operation.
> > > 
> > > and on the standby node:
> > > 
> > > r8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver 1.2 loaded
> > > PCI: Found IRQ 4 for device 00:09.0
> > > r8169: PCI device 00:09.0: unknown chip version, assuming RTL-8169
> > > r8169: PCI device 00:09.0: TxConfig = 0x4000000
> > > divert: allocating divert_blk for eth1
> > > eth1: Identified chip type is 'RTL-8169'.
> > > eth1: RealTek RTL8169 Gigabit Ethernet at 0xxxxxxxxx, xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx, 
> IRQ 4
> > > eth1: Auto-negotiation Enabled.
> > > eth1: 1000Mbps Full-duplex operation.
> > > 
> > > Each card has a RealTek chip on it, so the assumption the kernel makes 
> above 
> > > is correct.
> > > 
> > > I've given these cards 10.x.x.x subnets, and am able to ping between the 
> two 
> > > (I've used a cross-over cable to hook each of them up to one another)
> > > 
> > > However, mii-tools shows me the following:
> > > 
> > > # mii-tool
> > > eth0: negotiated 100baseTx-HD, link ok
> > > eth1: negotiated 100baseTx-HD, link ok
> > > SIOCGMIIPHY on 'eth2' failed: Operation not supported
> > > 
> > > Is this an issue when running with linuxha.net?
> > > 
> > > Thanks.
> > > 
> > > Michael.
> > > 
> > > 
> > >
> ------- End of Original Message -------
> 
> 
>