CentOS virt - Jan 2017 - NIC Stability Problems Under Xen 4.4 / CentOS 6 / Linux 3.18

On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 09:29:39PM +0800, -=X.L.O.R.D=-
wrote:
> Kevin Stange,
> It can be either kernel or update the NIC driver or firmware of the NIC
> card. Hope that helps!
> 
> Xlord
> -----Original Message-----
> From: CentOS-virt [mailto:centos-virt-bounces at centos.org] On Behalf Of
Kevin
> Stange
> Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2017 1:04 AM
> To: centos-virt at centos.org
> Subject: [CentOS-virt] NIC Stability Problems Under Xen 4.4 / CentOS 6 /
> Linux 3.18
> 
> I have three different types of CentOS 6 Xen 4.4 based hypervisors (by
> hardware) that are experiencing stability issues which I haven't been
able
> to track down.  All three types seem to be having issues with NIC and/or
> PCIe.  In most cases, the issues are unrecoverable and require a hard boot
> to resolve.  All have Intel NICs.
> 
> Often the systems will remain stable for days or weeks, then suddenly
> encounter one of these issues.  I have yet to tie the error to any specific
> action on the systems and can't reproduce it reliably.
> 
> - Supermicro X8DT3, Dual Xeon E5620, 2x 82575EB NICs, 2x 82576 NICs
> 
> Kernel messages upon failure:
> 
> pcieport 0000:00:03.0: AER: Multiple Corrected error received: id=0018
> pcieport 0000:00:03.0: PCIe Bus Error: severity=Corrected, type=Transaction
> Layer, id=0018(Receiver ID)
> pcieport 0000:00:03.0:   device [8086:340a] error
> status/mask=00002000/00001001
> pcieport 0000:00:03.0:    [13] Advisory Non-Fatal
> pcieport 0000:00:03.0:   Error of this Agent(0018) is reported first
> igb 0000:04:00.0: PCIe Bus Error: severity=Corrected, type=Physical Layer,
> id=0400(Receiver ID)
> igb 0000:04:00.0:   device [8086:10a7] error status/mask=00002001/00002000
> igb 0000:04:00.0:    [ 0] Receiver Error         (First)
> igb 0000:04:00.1: PCIe Bus Error: severity=Corrected, type=Physical Layer,
> id=0401(Receiver ID)
> igb 0000:04:00.1:   device [8086:10a7] error status/mask=00002001/00002000
> igb 0000:04:00.1:    [ 0] Receiver Error         (First)
> 
> This spams to the console continuously until hard booting.
> 
> - Supermicro X9DRD-iF/LF, Dual Xeon E5-2630, 2x I350, 2x 82575EB
> 
> igb 0000:82:00.0: Detected Tx Unit Hang
>  Tx Queue             <1>
>  TDH                  <43>
>  TDT                  <50>
>  next_to_use          <50>
>  next_to_clean        <43>
> buffer_info[next_to_clean]
>  time_stamp           <12e6bc0b6> next_to_watch       
<ffff880006aa7440>
>  jiffies              <12e6bc8dc>
>  desc.status          <1c8210>
> 
> This spams to the console continuously until hard booting.
> 
> - Supermicro X9DRT, Dual Xeon E5-2650, 2x I350, 2x 82571EB
> 
> e1000e 0000:04:00.0 eth2: Detected Hardware Unit Hang:
>   TDH                  <ff>
>   TDT                  <33>
>   next_to_use          <33>
>   next_to_clean        <fd>
> buffer_info[next_to_clean]:
>   time_stamp           <138230862>
>   next_to_watch        <ff>
>   jiffies              <138231ac0>
>   next_to_watch.status <0>
> MAC Status             <80383>
> PHY Status             <792d>
> PHY 1000BASE-T Status  <3c00>
> PHY Extended Status    <3000>
> PCI Status             <10>
> 
> This type of system, the NIC automatically recovers and I don't need to
> reboot.
> 
> So far I tried using pcie_aspm=off to see that would help, but it appears
> that the 3.18 kernel turns off ASPM by default on these due to probing the
> BIOS.  Stability issues were not resolved by the changes.
> 
> On the latter system type I also turned off all offloading setting.  It
> appears the stability increased slightly but it didn't fully resolve
the
> problem.  I haven't adjusted offload settings on the first two server
types
> yet.
> 
> I suspect this problem is related to the 3.18 kernel used by the virt SIG,
> as we had these running Xen on CentOS 5's kernel with no issues for
years,
> and systems of these types used elsewhere in our facility are stable under
> CentOS 6's standard kernel.  This affects more than one server of each
type,
> so I don't believe it is a hardware failure, or else it's a
hardware design
> flaw.
> 
> Has anyone experienced similar issues with this configuration, and if so,
> does anyone have tips on how to resolve the issues?
Honeslty I would email Intel and see if they can help. This looks like
the NIC decides something is wrong, throws off an PCIe error and
then resets itself.

It could also be an error in the Linux stack which would "eat" an
interrupt when migrating interrupts (which was fixed
upstream, see below). Are you running irqbalance? Could you try
turning it off?


Did you have these issues with an earlier kernel?

The fix was 
ff1e22e7a638a0782f54f81a6c9cb139aca2da35
Author: Boris Ostrovsky <boris.ostrovsky at oracle.com>
Date:   Fri Mar 18 10:11:07 2016 -0400

    xen/events: Mask a moving irq

and then there was a fix to this fix:
commit f0f393877c71ad227d36705d61d1e4062bc29cf5
Author: Ross Lagerwall <ross.lagerwall at citrix.com>
Date:   Tue May 10 16:11:00 2016 +0100

    xen/events: Don't move disabled irqs
    

> 
> --
> Kevin Stange
> Chief Technology Officer
> Steadfast | Managed Infrastructure, Datacenter and Cloud Services
> 800 S Wells, Suite 190 | Chicago, IL 60607
> 312.602.2689 X203 | Fax: 312.602.2688
> kevin at steadfast.net | www.steadfast.net
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS-virt mailing list
> CentOS-virt at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-virt
> 
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS-virt mailing list
> CentOS-virt at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos-virt

On 01/24/2017 09:10 AM, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 09:29:39PM +0800, -=X.L.O.R.D=- wrote:
>> Kevin Stange,
>> It can be either kernel or update the NIC driver or firmware of the NIC
>> card. Hope that helps!
>>
>> Xlord
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: CentOS-virt [mailto:centos-virt-bounces at centos.org] On Behalf
Of Kevin
>> Stange
>> Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2017 1:04 AM
>> To: centos-virt at centos.org
>> Subject: [CentOS-virt] NIC Stability Problems Under Xen 4.4 / CentOS 6
/
>> Linux 3.18
>>
<snip>
>>
>> Has anyone experienced similar issues with this configuration, and if
so,
>> does anyone have tips on how to resolve the issues?
> 
> Honeslty I would email Intel and see if they can help. This looks like
> the NIC decides something is wrong, throws off an PCIe error and
> then resets itself.
This happens for several different NICs.  Is there a good contact at
Intel for this kind of thing, or should I just try to reach them through
their web site?
> It could also be an error in the Linux stack which would "eat" an
> interrupt when migrating interrupts (which was fixed
> upstream, see below). Are you running irqbalance? Could you try
> turning it off?
irqbalance is enabled on these servers.  I'll try disabling it.
> Did you have these issues with an earlier kernel?
The last kernel these boxes ran was 2.6.18-412.el5xen under CentOS 5 and
they were very stable, however the differences between 2.6.18 and 3.18
are immense, especially with features like ASPM and other power
management code.  We've run into ASPM issues on systems before going
from CentOS 5 to the CentOS 6 kernel 2.6.32, but not this particular
hardware, which is why my first thought was to look at ASPM.

They've all been upgraded to CentOS 6 and running the virt SIG kernel
kernel-3.18.44-20.el6.x86_64.  I haven't run any previous versions 3.18
or tried any other kernels.

It surprises me that we would have all these issues if there isn't a
more widespread problem considering the hardware is fairly maintain and
covers a lot of NIC chips.

-- 
Kevin Stange
Chief Technology Officer
Steadfast | Managed Infrastructure, Datacenter and Cloud Services
800 S Wells, Suite 190 | Chicago, IL 60607
312.602.2689 X203 | Fax: 312.602.2688
kevin at steadfast.net | www.steadfast.net

On 01/24/2017 11:16 AM, Kevin Stange wrote:
> On 01/24/2017 09:10 AM, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
>> On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 09:29:39PM +0800, -=X.L.O.R.D=- wrote:
>>> Kevin Stange,
>>> It can be either kernel or update the NIC driver or firmware of the
NIC
>>> card. Hope that helps!
>>>
>>> Xlord
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: CentOS-virt [mailto:centos-virt-bounces at centos.org] On
Behalf Of Kevin
>>> Stange
>>> Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2017 1:04 AM
>>> To: centos-virt at centos.org
>>> Subject: [CentOS-virt] NIC Stability Problems Under Xen 4.4 /
CentOS 6 /
>>> Linux 3.18
>>>
> <snip>
>>>
>>> Has anyone experienced similar issues with this configuration, and
if so,
>>> does anyone have tips on how to resolve the issues?
>>
>> Honeslty I would email Intel and see if they can help. This looks like
>> the NIC decides something is wrong, throws off an PCIe error and
>> then resets itself.
> 
> This happens for several different NICs.  Is there a good contact at
> Intel for this kind of thing, or should I just try to reach them through
> their web site?
> 
>> It could also be an error in the Linux stack which would
"eat" an
>> interrupt when migrating interrupts (which was fixed
>> upstream, see below). Are you running irqbalance? Could you try
>> turning it off?
> 
> irqbalance is enabled on these servers.  I'll try disabling it.
I had stopped irqbalance yesterday afternoon, but had a hypervisor's
NICs fail anyway in early morning this morning, so I'm pretty sure this
is not the right tree to bark up.

-- 
Kevin Stange
Chief Technology Officer
Steadfast | Managed Infrastructure, Datacenter and Cloud Services
800 S Wells, Suite 190 | Chicago, IL 60607
312.602.2689 X203 | Fax: 312.602.2688
kevin at steadfast.net | www.steadfast.net