Re: ifconfig xx0 -mediaopt flowcontrol (was Re: disabling mediaopts for if_wm(4))

[Paul Goyette <paul%whooppee.com@localhost>]

Well, I tried to explicitly configure the speed to 100baseTX, which 
(according to all other reports) will disable all auto-negotiation.

That actually makes things worse, as it causes 50% reduction in the
"speed test" download results (from 50Mb/sec reduces to 24Mb/sec), with 
no change in the upload results (still varies in a range aroud 3Mb/sec 
to 5Mb/sec).

I did a tcpdump while the speed-test was running and noticed large 
numbers of tcp packets with SACK options, indicating that packets are 
getting dropped.

I also tried to run the same test with a re(4) RealTek interface instead 
of the wm(4).  The re(4) did not negotiate any flow-control, and when I 
tried the speed-test it could not even connect to the servers!  It took 
dhcpcd several minutes before the link would even configure, and still 
it was nearly impossible to do any DNS look-ups (with google 8.8.8.{4,8} 
as the servers).

So, it seems that the switch requires functional flow-control on its 
ports, and neither the re(4) nor wm(4) drivers seem to work correctly. 
I will be replacing the switch as soon as my budget permits!


The speed-test can be found at http://speedtest.net


On Thu, 11 May 2017, Masanobu SAITOH wrote:

> Hi, all.
>
> Currently, (almost?) all Ethernet driver can't disable flow control
> via
>
> 	ifconfig xxN -mediaopt flowcontrol
>
> FreeBSD has the same problem.
>
> Flow control stuff can be separated into three different parts:
>
> 	A) interface (UI, API) to control Ethernet interface
>
> 	B) Autonego
>
> 		0) Set PHY's auto negotiation advertise register's
> 		flow bits first.
>
> 		1) and then, do autonego
>
> 	C) set MAC
>
> 		Check link partner's advertise bit from B-1's result
> 		and set MAC registers correctly.
> 		 B) and C) works on wm(4) and ixg(4) now. Problem"s" are in 
> A).
>
> A few years ago, I noticed that I can't change flow control setting
> of wm(4) via ifconfig(8). And then, I added some printf()s to track
> the problem. One of the problem is that the second argument of 
> ifmedia_init().
> Almost all driver has no IFM_ETH_FMASK in the second argument.
> Another problem is in ifmedia_match(). I forgot the detail, but
> the problem was caused by not passing flowcontrol media mask into
> each driver correctly. See also PR#48950
>
> 	http://gnats.netbsd.org/48950
>
> For ixg(4), it has a special sysctl to change the setting
>
> > % sysctl hw.ixg0.fc
> > hw.ixg0.fc = 3
> > % sysctl -d hw.ixg0.fc
> > hw.ixg0.fc:
> > Set flow control mode using these values:
> >         0 - off
> >         1 - rx pause
> >         2 - tx pause
> >         3 - tx and rx pause
>
>
> --
> -----------------------------------------------
>                SAITOH Masanobu (msaitoh%execsw.org@localhost
>                                 msaitoh%netbsd.org@localhost)
>
> !DSPAM:591417079821744912403!

+------------------+--------------------------+----------------------------+
| Paul Goyette     | PGP Key fingerprint:     | E-mail addresses:          |
| (Retired)        | FA29 0E3B 35AF E8AE 6651 | paul at whooppee dot com   |
| Kernel Developer | 0786 F758 55DE 53BA 7731 | pgoyette at netbsd dot org |
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