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

On 03/16/2017 04:22 PM, Kevin Stange wrote:
>> I still can't rest assured the NIC issue is fixed, but no 4.4 or
4.9
>> server has yet had a NIC issue, with some being up almost a full month.
>> It looks promising! (I'm knocking on all the wood everywhere,
though.)
> 
> I'm ready to call this conclusive.  The problems I was having across
the
> board seemed to be caused by something seriously broken in 3.18.  Most
> of my servers are now on 4.9.13 or newer and everything has been working
> very well.
> 
> I'm not going to post any further updates unless something breaks.
> Thanks to everyone that provided tips and suggestions along the way.
> 
Do you mind sharing what hardware have you been running the 4.9 kernel on other
than "Supermicro X9DRT, Dual Xeon E5-2650, 2x I350, 2x 82571EB" and
"Supermicro X9DRD-iF/LF, Dual Xeon E5-2630, 2x I350, 2x 82575EB" if
any? Are you using any SATA/SAS controllers?

Thanks, Sarah

On 03/25/2017 02:35 PM, Sarah Newman wrote:
> On 03/16/2017 04:22 PM, Kevin Stange wrote:
> 
>>> I still can't rest assured the NIC issue is fixed, but no 4.4
or 4.9
>>> server has yet had a NIC issue, with some being up almost a full
month.
>>> It looks promising! (I'm knocking on all the wood everywhere,
though.)
>>
>> I'm ready to call this conclusive.  The problems I was having
across the
>> board seemed to be caused by something seriously broken in 3.18.  Most
>> of my servers are now on 4.9.13 or newer and everything has been
working
>> very well.
>>
>> I'm not going to post any further updates unless something breaks.
>> Thanks to everyone that provided tips and suggestions along the way.
>>
> 
> Do you mind sharing what hardware have you been running the 4.9 kernel on
other than "Supermicro X9DRT, Dual Xeon E5-2650, 2x I350, 2x 82571EB"
and
> "Supermicro X9DRD-iF/LF, Dual Xeon E5-2630, 2x I350, 2x 82575EB"
if any? Are you using any SATA/SAS controllers?
We have no expansion cards installed except for the dual-port gigabit
NICs.  We're using the onboard SATA controller for only the local Dom0
OS, and iSCSI and NFS for managing storage for VMs and images.

-- 
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 03/27/2017 04:03 PM, Kevin Stange wrote:
> On 03/25/2017 02:35 PM, Sarah Newman wrote:
>> On 03/16/2017 04:22 PM, Kevin Stange wrote:
>>
>>>> I still can't rest assured the NIC issue is fixed, but no
4.4 or 4.9
>>>> server has yet had a NIC issue, with some being up almost a
full month.
>>>> It looks promising! (I'm knocking on all the wood
everywhere, though.)
>>>
>>> I'm ready to call this conclusive.  The problems I was having
across the
>>> board seemed to be caused by something seriously broken in 3.18. 
Most
>>> of my servers are now on 4.9.13 or newer and everything has been
working
>>> very well.
>>>
>>> I'm not going to post any further updates unless something
breaks.
>>> Thanks to everyone that provided tips and suggestions along the
way.
>>>
>>
>> Do you mind sharing what hardware have you been running the 4.9 kernel
on other than "Supermicro X9DRT, Dual Xeon E5-2650, 2x I350, 2x
82571EB" and
>> "Supermicro X9DRD-iF/LF, Dual Xeon E5-2630, 2x I350, 2x
82575EB" if any? Are you using any SATA/SAS controllers?
> 
> We have no expansion cards installed except for the dual-port gigabit
> NICs.  We're using the onboard SATA controller for only the local Dom0
> OS, and iSCSI and NFS for managing storage for VMs and images.
> 
We've got some other motherboards as well, I think this list is exhaustive:

Supermicro X8DT3
Supermicro X8DT6
Supermicro X9DRD-iF/LF
Supermicro X9DRT
Supermicro X9SCL/X9SCM

These are -F variants which means they include a BMC chip with a
separate NIC.  A few of the X8DT3 are the LN4 variant, which has 4
onboard NICs and therefore we did not use an expansion NIC.

-- 
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