Subject: Re: [vserver] transient network drops
From: Chuck <chuck@sbbsnet.net>
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:02:51 -0400


i dont know much about hardware switching interfaces as it will, but couldn't 
that be rectified by running arp or an arp-like product to reassign them? 
then iproute2 could be used to guarantee the same network goes to the same 
card always. in some computers it also could work to disable the network 
interfaces in bios yet the kernel can still detect and use them.


On Thursday 30 August 2007, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> 
> I spent some quality time with my smart switch, and found out the culprit:
> 
>   85.10.225.64    00e081-5858b2     dynamic
>   85.10.225.64    00e081-5858b3     dynamic 7
> 
> strange, eh? Given 
> 
>  eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:E0:81:58:58:B3
>  eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:E0:81:58:58:B2
> 
> we have a case of the MAC flipping from one interface in 
> the other. Whether this only happens to vservers, or
> vservers with lots of traffic, or also the physical
> server NIC is to be determined.
> 
> I've heard that some SunFire X2100 were known to let
> the MAC move over to another NIC, which might be the case
> here. 
> 
> On Thu, Aug 30, 2007 at 10:27:16AM +0200, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> > 
> > I'm running some 13 vservers on a SunFire X2100 with two
> > NICs, using 2.6.15-amd64-smp-vs on AMD64 debian sarge.
> > 
> > Ethernet interfaces:
> > 
> > eth0: Tigon3 [partno(BCM95721) rev 4101 PHY(5750)] (PCI Express) 
10/100/1000BaseT Ethernet 00:e0:81:58:58:b3
> > eth0: RXcsums[1] LinkChgREG[0] MIirq[0] ASF[1] Split[0] WireSpeed[1] 
TSOcap[1] 
> > eth0: dma_rwctrl[76180000]
> > 
> > eth1: forcedeth.c: subsystem: 0108e:5348 bound to 0000:00:0a.0
> > 
> > eth0 is the main system interface with an MTU of 1500, eth1 
> > used on a local interface with a MTU of 9000.
> > 
> > I have semiregular sporadic outages on one vserver (xxx.xxx.xxx.64 on
> > a /24 network), which last many minutes, and resolve spontaneously.
> > They resolve immediately if the vserver is restarted, and they also
> > resolve immediately if I remove the entire machine from the network
> > by disabling the port on the gateway switch (but typically reappear
> > soon after).
> > 
> > The source of the outages for that guest is definitely located in
> > the host (I can ping that server just fine from the host during
> > outages though, and ditto from other machines on the same switch (all
> > those are also connected via eth1 to a private network).
> > I've verified this by running MTR (there's a firewall in front
> > of the machine which is in transparent bridge mode which I suspected
> > first, but bypassing it made absolutely no difference).
> > 
> > >From the symptoms it looks like ARP or MAC (as a wild-ass guess,
> > I've heard that some SunFire X2100 models MACs can move across
> > different NICs) trouble. How can I diagnose this to narrow this 
> > further down?
> 
> -- 
> Eugen* Leitl <a href="leitlhttp://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
> ______________________________________________________________
> ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
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> 



-- 

Chuck

"...and the hordes of M$*ft users descended upon me in their anger,
and asked 'Why do you not get the viruses or the BlueScreensOfDeath
or insecure system troubles and slowness or pay through the nose 
for an OS as *we* do?!!', and I answered...'I use Linux'. "
The Book of John, chapter 1, page 1, and end of book