From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Randy.Dunlap" Subject: Re: [PATCH -rt DO NOT APPLY] Fix for tg3 networking lockup Date: Thu, 3 Aug 2006 09:49:17 -0700 Message-ID: <20060803094917.8280f5ff.rdunlap@xenotime.net> References: <20060803075704.GC27835@thunk.org> <20060803163204.GB20603@thunk.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Herbert Xu , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, netdev@vger.kernel.org, davem@davemloft.net, mchan@broadcom.com Return-path: To: Theodore Tso In-Reply-To: <20060803163204.GB20603@thunk.org> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org On Thu, 3 Aug 2006 12:32:05 -0400 Theodore Tso wrote: > On Thu, Aug 03, 2006 at 08:00:35PM +1000, Herbert Xu wrote: > > Theodore Tso wrote: > > > > > > I'm sending this on mostly because it was a bit of a pain to track down, > > > and hopefully it will save time if anyone else hits this while playing > > > with the -rt kernel. It is NOT the right way to fix things, so please > > > don't even think of applying this patch (unless you need it, in your own > > > local tree :-). > > > > > > One of these days when we have time to breath we'll look into fixing > > > this the right way, if someone doesn't beat us to it first. :-) > > > > You probably should resend the patch to netdev and Michael Chan > > . He might have ideas on how this could be > > avoided. > > This only shows up with the real-time kernel where timer softirq's run > in their own processes, and a high priority process preempts the timer > softirq. I don't really consider this a networking bug, or even > driver bug, although it does seem unfortunate that Broadcom hardware > locks up and goes unresponsive if the OS doesn't tickle it every tenth > of a second or so. (Definitely a bad idea if the tg3 gets used on any > laptops, from a power usage perspective.) But that seems like a > (lame) hardware bug, not a driver bug.... Interesting. On my Dell D610 notebook with tg3 and vpn, I have to ping a server on the vpn to keep it alive, otherwise it disappears soon and I have to restart the vpn. Of course, this could just be the vpn or some other software problem instead of a tg3 problem. --- ~Randy