Re: PCN0 problem

[David Brownlee <abs%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Thu, 29 Jul 2021 at 15:38, T <bobs%thelibertytree.org@localhost> wrote:
>
> On Sat, 26 Jun 2021 21:42:48 -0000 (UTC), T wrote:
>
> > Hello,
> > I have a problem with the pcn0 NIC on the following machine:
> > https://dmesgd.nycbug.org/index.cgi?do=view&id=6120 The integrated pcn0
> > causes the machine to become unresponsive if interacting with it through
> > NetBSD. Two specific examples I can think of are:
> > 1) When I originally obtained the system, I used the firmware net boot
> > functionality to load the sysinst image over the network and tried to
> > install packages from a NFS share. This would initiate and load into
> > sysinst, but then the system would become completely unresponsive during
> > the unpacking phase of the install, as in the screen would become frozen
> > on output related to unpacking the sets. Pressing the NUM_lock key would
> > not toggle the keyboard LED for it and no user interaction seemed to
> > work (remote ping, SSH, keyboard, debugger key sequence). I started
> > using NetBSD with this machine with one of the later version 7 releases,
> > from which this example originates.
> >
> > 2) Currently, with 9.2_STABLE, I can reproduce this problem by just
> > calling 'dhcpcd pcn0', which will cause the same unresponsive behavior
> > as mentioned above. I have worked around this issue by using an
> > alternative add-on NIC, but interacting with the integrated pcn NIC has
> > always been an issue since the original example.
> >
> > The system firmware does not seem to have any problems with the NIC when
> > using built-in device tests or net boot functionality.
> >
> > I was wondering if anyone else has had issues with this driver (likely
> > being used on a different port) and if the problem is likely not a
> > driver issue, but specific to port-prep? It has been mentioned to me on
> > IRC that I might need to use something like KGDB to troubleshoot the
> > issue, but that would need to be added to the port, because it does not
> > currently exist.
>
> I did some additional testing using the firmware net boot functionality
> to test sysinst.fs images for 6.2, 7.0, 7.1, 7.2, 8.0, 8.1, and 8.2 .
> These all appeared to work fine when using the installer "configure
> network" utility menu option and ping utility. The 9.0 sysinst.fs is too
> large to work on this system so I had to switch over to the smaller
> sysinst_small.fs image. This version did not work like the others, and
> had a noticeable problem with the "configure network" option in the
> utility menu. Attempting to select a NIC "media" would not accept values.
> In prior versions, this had a populated default of (autoconfigure), but
> was missing for 9.0 . Trying the sysinst_small.fs image for 8.2 worked
> fine and appeared to function the same as the regular sysinst.fs image.

Some random thoughts:

- It sounds like the pcn has issues with all versions, but its much
more serious with NetBSD 9.x?
- Is there any version which works reliably (maybe boot earlier
sysinst.fs, nfs mount a remote share and tar tzf the images to try to
reproduce)
- Could it be related to a combination of pcn and other (eg disk)
activity - so tar tzf may not trigger but extracting would
- Does a current sysinst image from
http://nyftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD-daily/HEAD/latest/ also show the
issue
- If there is an earlier version that works 100% I'd suggest checking
the difference in dmesg between that and the first version to show the
issue

David