xen discuss - Aug 2007 - Xen Rhel5 dom0 Solaris11-66 domU nic packet offloading

I am currently running a Redhat Rel5 Dom0 with a solaris 11-66 xen domU as well
as a Redhat REL4 domU. I am experiancing problems similary to those described
the the Aug 2006 Release notes regarding ...

Solaris domUs on non-Solaris dom0s
32-bit Solaris domUs should run on any 3.0.2-3 or later dom0. The majority of
our testing has been on CentOS dom0s.

64-bit solaris dom0 and domU require updates to Xen not currently present in the
standard Xen distribution. The current Xen source delivered with this snapshot
will most likely not compile or run a Linux dom0 (since we have not tested it
yet). Therefore, you will only be able to run 64-bit Solaris dom0 or domU on the
modified Xen we provide on this site.

Checksum offload should be disabled on the backend network interfaces of the
dom0 that are used to connect to the Solaris domU. Use ethtool -K vif<N>
tx off under Linux. The vif-bridge script included in the Xen repository
supplied with this code drop already disables checksum offload automatically
(see xen.hg/tools/examples/vif-bridge).

I have disabled the tx in dom0 for the vif''s but the problem persists
the Nic in solaris shows
bash-3.00# ./ifcapability
lo0 inet
xnf0 inet +HCKSUM(version=1 +fullv4) +ZEROCOPY(version=1 flags=0x1) +POLL
bash-3.00# 

and the vif shows
vif3.0    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr FE:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF  
          inet6 addr: fe80::fcff:ffff:feff:ffff/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING NOARP  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:102 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:23338 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:32 
          RX bytes:8553 (8.3 KiB)  TX bytes:1616099 (1.5 MiB)
mcoyne@styx.pbdenton.paccar.com:/home/mcoyne # ethtool -k vif3.0
Offload parameters for vif3.0:
Cannot get device rx csum settings: Operation not supported
Cannot get device udp large send offload settings: Operation not supported
rx-checksumming: off
tx-checksumming: off
scatter-gather: off
tcp segmentation offload: off
udp fragmentation offload: off
generic segmentation offload: off

How can i force the nic in the solaris domU to disable checksum offoading as
changes in the linux Dom0 dont seem to work.  Currently i can commucate to and
from dom0 to domU with normal networking commands  ssh xwindows...etc... but the
solaris domU cant commincate on the "wire" with other machines on the
same subnet or the gateway with the exceptions of pings.  Any thought would be
greatly welcomed.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org

I found a previous discussion on how to disable the cksum offloading in solaris
(see excerpt below) when i put the  "set xnf:xnf_cksum_offload = 0" in
the solaris /etc/system file and "bootadm update-archive" followed by
copying the boot_archive back out to RHEL5 and rebooting my network connectivity
came back. It would appear the tg3 driver and the Broadcom NexXtreme BCM5721 and
BCN5752 nics in my Dell 690 and Dell 570 test box may suffer the same or similar
problems as the referenced sis900 referenced in the thread.
 
 
excerpt from opensolaris xen discussion group  
 
http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=35583&tstart=45
 
My only remainning problem is how to stop the Solaris domU file system from
locking up under Rhel5 dom0 , i have seen similar problems with hvm''s
of solaris and windoze and linux on this  hardware. It seem to be much more
prevalent on the Dell 690''s as compared to the Dell 570 . which may be
a function of the number of "cores" as the 570 is a single processor
and the 690 has 2x dual core  but at this point i am grabbing at straws.
 
 
This message posted from opensolaris.org