2.6.0-test9 : bridge freezes

2.6.0-test9 : bridge freezes

[SVR Anand]

Hi,

I am one of the system administrators who manage a campus network of 5000 users
that is connected to Internet. We have placed a Linux bridge to isolate the 
Internet from the campus. To nullify network flooding effect, we have used 
iptables. The kernel is 2.6.0-test9, the ethernet cards that are used are 
RTL8139.

The problem is : After 3 to 4 hours of functioning, the bridge stops working 
and the machine becomes unusable where it doesn't respond to keyboard, and 
there is no video display. In simple terms it freezes. Before going in for 
2.6.0-test9 I have tried 2.4.20 with bridge patches for iptables support. It
worked reliably except that I cannot even login from the console because 
I don't get the shell prompt after a while. 

Presently I have gone back to 2.4.20 for the sake of robustness. Can someone
let me know what I can do to use 2.6.x kernel with a good amount of confidence
so that I can keep the campus users happy ? I am making guess work as
to whether the problem is with the network drivers, or some power management 
issues, and so on.

Any inputs from you will be really useful. I am eager to try out any amount
of debugging, the thing is I don't know what to look for.


Anand

Re: 2.6.0-test9 : bridge freezes

[Gene Heskett]

On Saturday 22 November 2003 10:27, SVR Anand wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I am one of the system administrators who manage a campus network of
> 5000 users that is connected to Internet. We have placed a Linux
> bridge to isolate the Internet from the campus. To nullify network
> flooding effect, we have used iptables. The kernel is 2.6.0-test9,
> the ethernet cards that are used are RTL8139.
>
>The problem is : After 3 to 4 hours of functioning, the bridge stops
> working and the machine becomes unusable where it doesn't respond
> to keyboard, and there is no video display. In simple terms it
> freezes. Before going in for 2.6.0-test9 I have tried 2.4.20 with
> bridge patches for iptables support. It worked reliably except that
> I cannot even login from the console because I don't get the shell
> prompt after a while.
>
>Presently I have gone back to 2.4.20 for the sake of robustness. Can
> someone let me know what I can do to use 2.6.x kernel with a good
> amount of confidence so that I can keep the campus users happy ? I
> am making guess work as to whether the problem is with the network
> drivers, or some power management issues, and so on.
>
>Any inputs from you will be really useful. I am eager to try out any
> amount of debugging, the thing is I don't know what to look for.

Neither do I, but I can report that iptables is apparently stable, 
witness this from my firewall machine:
---------------------
[root@gene root]# uname -a
Linux gene.coyote.den 2.4.21-rc1-ck6 #9 Mon May 5 23:31:30 EDT 2003 
i586 unknown
[root@gene root]# uptime
 11:14am  up 35 days,  3:19,  2 users,  load average: 1.00, 1.00, 1.00
---------------------
Now admittedly it doesn't have 5000 users, just one.  But everytime 
I'd had problems such as you are describing at the tv station the 
where user count is about 65, its hardware related. I'd start by 
letting memtest86 run on that box for a couple of days, maybe it will 
find some flakey memory.

-- 
Cheers, Gene
AMD K6-III@500mhz 320M
Athlon1600XP@1400mhz  512M
99.27% setiathome rank, not too shabby for a WV hillbilly
Yahoo.com attornies please note, additions to this message
by Gene Heskett are:
Copyright 2003 by Maurice Eugene Heskett, all rights reserved.

Re: 2.6.0-test9 : bridge freezes

[Linus Torvalds]

On Sat, 22 Nov 2003, SVR Anand wrote:
> 
> The problem is : After 3 to 4 hours of functioning, the bridge stops working 
> and the machine becomes unusable where it doesn't respond to keyboard, and 
> there is no video display.

Sounds like a memory leak somewhere. It would probably be interesting to 
watch /proc/slabinfo every five minutes or so, and see what happens..

		Linus

Re: 2.6.0-test9 : bridge freezes

[David S. Miller]

On Sat, 22 Nov 2003 08:20:40 -0800 (PST)
Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> wrote:

> On Sat, 22 Nov 2003, SVR Anand wrote:
> > 
> > The problem is : After 3 to 4 hours of functioning, the bridge stops working 
> > and the machine becomes unusable where it doesn't respond to keyboard, and 
> > there is no video display.
> 
> Sounds like a memory leak somewhere. It would probably be interesting to 
> watch /proc/slabinfo every five minutes or so, and see what happens..

Also, we've certainly fixed some serious networking bugs since test9
came out.

Re: 2.6.0-test9 : bridge freezes

[Markus Hästbacka]

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I wonder how it's possible that test4 worked fine and then something
like this comes up? (I DID report this earlier, but who would care?)

Also, it've been too long since test9, and there's not much people
testing the bk's at all.

There may be a reason for someone not to test the bk's, maybe the
experience with 2.4 bk's, yes, those which wont compile/boot at all.
So I'd suggest to remove 2.4 bk's totaly from kernel.org.

Regards,
Markus

On Mon, 2003-11-24 at 01:26, David S. Miller wrote:
> Also, we've certainly fixed some serious networking bugs since test9
> came out.
-- 
"Software is like sex, it's better when it's free."
Markus Hästbacka <midian at ihme dot org>

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Re: 2.6.0-test9-bk25 : bridge works fine

[SVR Anand]

Hi,

With test9-bk25, I am not facing any problem for the past many hours which
was not to be the case with test9. I am hopeful that it will work for ever.

Thanks a lot for all the help. Next time I should make it a point to try on 
the latest of the latest before shooting off a mail :)

Anand
> 
> On Sat, 22 Nov 2003 08:20:40 -0800 (PST)
> Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Sat, 22 Nov 2003, SVR Anand wrote:
> > > 
> > > The problem is : After 3 to 4 hours of functioning, the bridge stops working 
> > > and the machine becomes unusable where it doesn't respond to keyboard, and 
> > > there is no video display.
> > 
> > Sounds like a memory leak somewhere. It would probably be interesting to 
> > watch /proc/slabinfo every five minutes or so, and see what happens..
> 
> Also, we've certainly fixed some serious networking bugs since test9
> came out.
> 

Re: 2.6.0-test9 : bridge freezes

[Markus Hästbacka]

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Hi!
I had this problem on my router too, the computer freezed somewhere
after 3-4 hours, in my case 2.6.0-test4 worked, but the test8 got lockup
(didn't test anything between test4 and test8).

Regards,
Markus

On Sat, 2003-11-22 at 17:27, SVR Anand wrote:
> The problem is : After 3 to 4 hours of functioning, the bridge stops working 
> and the machine becomes unusable where it doesn't respond to keyboard, and 
> there is no video display.
-- 
"Software is like sex, it's better when it's free."
Markus Hästbacka <midian at ihme.org>

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Re: 2.6.0-test9 : bridge freezes

[Stephen Hemminger]

On Sat, 22 Nov 2003 20:57:44 +0530 (GMT+05:30)
anand@eis.iisc.ernet.in (SVR Anand) wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I am one of the system administrators who manage a campus network of 5000 users
> that is connected to Internet. We have placed a Linux bridge to isolate the 
> Internet from the campus. To nullify network flooding effect, we have used 
> iptables. The kernel is 2.6.0-test9, the ethernet cards that are used are 
> RTL8139.
> 
> The problem is : After 3 to 4 hours of functioning, the bridge stops working 
> and the machine becomes unusable where it doesn't respond to keyboard, and 
> there is no video display. In simple terms it freezes. Before going in for 
> 2.6.0-test9 I have tried 2.4.20 with bridge patches for iptables support. It
> worked reliably except that I cannot even login from the console because 
> I don't get the shell prompt after a while. 
> 
> Presently I have gone back to 2.4.20 for the sake of robustness. Can someone
> let me know what I can do to use 2.6.x kernel with a good amount of confidence
> so that I can keep the campus users happy ? I am making guess work as
> to whether the problem is with the network drivers, or some power management 
> issues, and so on.
> 
> Any inputs from you will be really useful. I am eager to try out any amount
> of debugging, the thing is I don't know what to look for.
> 
> 
> Anand

Linus is right, this is probably a memory leak issue.  There are several areas
that could be the problem:
	- core networking 
	- iptables
		- iptables filter
	- ethernet bridging
	- ethernet driver (rtl8169)

To find/fix the problem, we need to narrow down the scope.  
Things that would help are, what are the iptables rules you are using?
Are there any errors showing up on the ethernet devices?
Also what does the bridge forwarding table look like? are there lots of entries, are
you running spanning tree?

Re: 2.6.0-test9 : bridge freezes

[SVR Anand]

Hi,

To begin with, thanks a lot for the concern you all have shown to address my 
problem.

This morning I have put in test9-bk25 image to see if the problem disappears. 
The result should be out in the next few hours. I hope it is OK if I send you 
the slabinfo in case the problem persists. 

I plan to test in stages.

i) Just bridging, no iptables
ii) With iptables.

I have very limited set of iptables rules. In fact it is as simple as blocking
icmp. There are no errors reported by ethernet devices.

Anand

PS : The latest test10 stops at the booting stage while initialising my aic7xxx
     scsi. So, I had to use bk25. 
> 
> Linus is right, this is probably a memory leak issue.  There are several areas
> that could be the problem:
> 	- core networking 
> 	- iptables
> 		- iptables filter
> 	- ethernet bridging
> 	- ethernet driver (rtl8169)
> 
> To find/fix the problem, we need to narrow down the scope.  
> Things that would help are, what are the iptables rules you are using?
> Are there any errors showing up on the ethernet devices?
> Also what does the bridge forwarding table look like? are there lots of entries, are
> you running spanning tree?
> 
> 
>