Re: be ethernet - IPv6 / mcast broken ?

[Brandon Applegate <brandon%burn.net@localhost>]

> On Feb 17, 2017, at 1:29 PM, Mike Spooner <mike.spooner.ux%gmail.com@localhost> wrote:
> 
> 
> 

Thanks for the reply.  A few notes / questions below.

> A few points:
> 
> (1) Sun never supported the BigMac interfaces (official marketing name "SunFastEthernet" 1.x or 2.x) in sun4c systems, such as the IPX, for "hardware reasons" (rumoured to be SBus DVMA timing issues).
> 
> (2) You might find that the BigMac interface is defaulting to half-duplex operation, which modern switches/hubs tend not to like at 100MBit/sec. I'm not sure if BigMac even supports full-duplex at 100Mbit/sec, but if it does, you may need to force it using OpenBOOT commands.

It is.  It seems to work (my switches are fine with it).  Obviously not optimal though...

> 
> (3) The BigMac hardware 1.x and 2.x were notoriously buggy at the hardware/firmware level. Sun released a longish sequence of patches for SunOS 4 and Solaris 2, and even for OpenBOOT system firmware (SFE 2.x requires OBP 2.26) to try and address the BigMac hardware issues, but there was always a certain amount of crossed fingers in getting them to work reliably.
> It is possible that NetBSD may contain better workarounds for the hardware bugs, and might even contain code to address the above system-level "hardware reasons" on sun4c, although that does sound a bit optimistic.
> 

That makes a ton of sense with regard to how this guy is behaving.  Sounds like this card had a couple of strikes against it from the get-go...

> (4) The SunSwift (hme) 100Mbit/sec Ethernet cards were also not supported by Sun in sun4c, but in that particular case, appears to be simply because Sun never went to the effort of formally qualifying them in such systems, rather than due to any known imcompatibilities? And they certainly did not have the crippling hardware bugs that the BigMac cards did. If you have a SunSwift card to hand, there might be some mileage in giving that a try instead, although of course no guarantees on an IPX.
> 

I see.  I read the sparc port hardware page - and saw lots of "not supported on sun4c”.  Sounds like what you are saying is that the hme is much better than the brain-damaged be, but the caveat is that it too isn’t “officially” blessed in a sun4c box.

> (5) Getting an IPX to really take advantage of 100Mbit/sec Ethernet is a bit optimistic. You might get *some* improvement over 10Mbit/sec "le", but nowhere near full "wire-speed" operation.

Right.  I really just saw this in one of my bins and decided to throw it in.  The IPX is more of a curiosity than anything - I don’t expect to get any real usefulness out of it (it’s just so cute though :) ).

Thanks for all these details.  Sounds like the bottom line is that be is fraught with issues and disfunction at a hardware level.  I might see if I can score an hme from eBay for relatively cheap.