Subject: Re: qdec ethernet cards
To: None <neil@domino.org>
From: Greg Earle <earle@isolar.Tujunga.CA.US>
List: port-sparc
Date: 02/02/1996 07:07:03
> Anyone got a driver for this one, or even documentation?
"qdec"? I assume you mean the Quad Ethernet cards w/ 4 TP Ethernets?
There is a guy at USC ISI who has the source to the 4.1.4 driver; he needed
it to provide binaries for the ipmulti 3.5 release.
The 4.1.x driver is buggy as all hell. The Quad Ethernets can get prodigious
amounts of Input Errors on them if conditions are right, and if left unabated,
can cause the interface to freeze up solid - either a reboot or putting the
interface into promiscuous mode (!!!) is needed to un-wedge it. I currently
have an escalated call into Sun about this problem, and a kludge workaround
whereby every 10 minutes I run a snoop from "cron" to grab 1 packet and bit
bucket it, thus putting the interface into promiscuous mode and ensuring that
it never locks up. A guy in Italy isn't even that lucky.
isolar:1:118 % rsh -n elroy.jpl.nasa.gov. netstat -ia
Name Mtu Net/Dest Address Ipkts Ierrs Opkts Oerrs Collis Queue
le0 1500 jpl-elroy-net elroy 45716915 2 64525250 0 449587 0
qe0 1500 jetsuns elroy 5185148 594396 216599 48 0 0
qe1 1500 jpl-ilan elroy 5206325 0 361594 0 0 0
qe2 1500 jpl-mipl elroy 7116652 269401 4168212 184 35 0
Check out those Ierrs on "qe0" and "qe2". 11.46% Input Error rate on qe0!!!
(Yet *no* Ierrs on a lesser-used interface, qe1. Bizarre.)
I recommend avoiding like the plague, even if it *is* nice to have 4 Ethernets
in one little SBus card.
- Greg