forcedeth: version 0.20 available

forcedeth: version 0.20 available

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

Hello all,

version 0.20 of forcedeth (GPLed nvnet replacement for nForce
on-board nics) for Linux 2.4 and 2.6 is available at
http://www.hailfinger.org/carldani/linux/patches/forcedeth/
It is also integrated in current -mm patchset and the 2.6
experimental net driver queue.
I will make precompiled modules available at the above address
as time permits.

Fixes in this release over 0.18:
* Work around bogus MAC addresses. Please report your exact
  hardware version/manufacturer if you hit this issue since
  NVidia has stated this should never happen and they are
  interested in any cases where it happens.
* Under extremely high network load on nForce3 systems, the
  nic won't lock up or slow down any more.

Known issues:
* Some nForce versions will report every received packet as
  1500 bytes long and fool RX statistics. This is definitely
  a hardware bug and we intend to provide a workaround in v0.21
* nForce3 systems are programmed to an incredibly high interrupt
  rate. We still need to find out what value to write to the
  timer register and we intend to fix this in v0.21
* "eth0: received irq with unknown events 0x<something>.
  Please report" might show up in your logs. That means we
  didn't encounter such an event during development and can
  only guess about its meaning.
  Please tell us what you were doing when the message appeared,
  how often it appeared and if it affects behaviour of your
  machine negatively.

Please test.


Regards,
Carl-Daniel

RE: forcedeth: version 0.20 available

[Feldman, Scott]

> version 0.20 of forcedeth (GPLed nvnet replacement for nForce 
> on-board nics) for Linux 2.4 and 2.6 is available at 
> http://www.hailfinger.org/carldani/linux/patch> es/forcedeth/

Carl-Daniel, I'm bored:

* Consider prefixing function names unique prefix so driver is
  not anonymous in backtraces.
* remove_nic: use free_netdev rather than kfree.
* remove_nic: should check if(dev) before dereferencing?
* remove_nic: check np->rx_ring before pci_free_consistent?
* probe_nic: call to get_nvpriv(dev) before checking if(!dev).
* Need minimal ethtool support: GSET/SSET/GDRVINFO/GLINK/
  NWAY_RST.  ethtool_ops support would be best, but compat w/
  2.4 is problematic.
* Use mii.c to get some ethtool support, mii_ioctl support,
  and maybe a replacement for update_linkspeed.
* Comment above set_multicast says change_mtu.
* NAPI support would be nice instead of the do_nic_poll timer.
* Consider using NETIF_MSG_XXX levels to test against a
  np->msg_enable for better control over message output.
* Replace MODULE_PARM with module_param only for 2.6. 

Cheers,
-scott

Re: forcedeth: version 0.20 available

[Manfred Spraul]

Feldman, Scott wrote:

>>version 0.20 of forcedeth (GPLed nvnet replacement for nForce 
>>on-board nics) for Linux 2.4 and 2.6 is available at 
>>http://www.hailfinger.org/carldani/linux/patch> es/forcedeth/
>>    
>>
>
>Carl-Daniel, I'm bored:
>
>* Consider prefixing function names unique prefix so driver is
>  not anonymous in backtraces.
>* remove_nic: use free_netdev rather than kfree.
>
Ups. My fault.

>* remove_nic: should check if(dev) before dereferencing?
>* remove_nic: check np->rx_ring before pci_free_consistent?
>
I think it cannot be NULL, but I'll double check it.


>* NAPI support would be nice instead of the do_nic_poll timer.
>
We are still guessing the meaning of some irq flags. Until we understand 
them, it's IMHO too dangerous to rely on masking the rx interrupts for 
rx processing. Additionally I"m not a big fan of NAPI.

ethtool is on my TODO list, but I don't know when I'll have the time to 
implement it.

--
    Manfred