Xen users - Jun 2012 - emulated rtl8139 driver, openvswitch, and offload

I''m getting strange network problems when deploying WDS images,
specifically:

DHCP doesn''t seem to renew properly

Tcpdump shows a 5K packet transmitted to the DomU, then retransmitted as 3 x
1500 byte packets, so presumably large packets are being passed to DomU and the
emulated adapter can''t handle them and just drops them.

This happens even when all the offload on the ovs bridge is off, so I
don''t know what is happening.

Any suggestions?

James

James,
    I have not been able to reliably disable Large Send Offload, Checksum
Offload and Scatter/Gather through the device manager GUI on Windows 2008
32bit/64bit with pv_drivers installed.  The Xen Net Device Driver will fail
to start and them the dom0 will panic and reboot.  I am very scared to
continue!  This happened to me twice today while I was going through and
disabling GSO/TSO/GRO on my broadcom bnx2 interfaces to fix a serious issue
we have with inter-Host network traffic.  Is there a way to do this that
doesn''t involve crashing the dom0 and causing the whole box to reboot?
Also, is there a guide to updating the drivers?  I would like to install the
latest 357 drivers, but the one time I tried uninstalling them I had a BSOD
and had to reimage.


Mike
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xen.org [mailto:xen-users-
> bounces@lists.xen.org] On Behalf Of James Harper
> Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 5:49 AM
> To: xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> Subject: [Xen-users] emulated rtl8139 driver, openvswitch, and offload
> 
> I''m getting strange network problems when deploying WDS images,
> specifically:
> 
> DHCP doesn''t seem to renew properly
> 
> Tcpdump shows a 5K packet transmitted to the DomU, then retransmitted as
> 3 x 1500 byte packets, so presumably large packets are being passed to
> DomU and the emulated adapter can''t handle them and just drops
them.
> 
> This happens even when all the offload on the ovs bridge is off, so I
don''t
> know what is happening.
> 
> Any suggestions?
> 
> James
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-users mailing list
> Xen-users@lists.xen.org
> http://lists.xen.org/xen-users

On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 08:10:39PM -0400, Michael A. Collins
wrote:
> James,
>     I have not been able to reliably disable Large Send Offload, Checksum
> Offload and Scatter/Gather through the device manager GUI on Windows 2008
> 32bit/64bit with pv_drivers installed.  The Xen Net Device Driver will fail
> to start and them the dom0 will panic and reboot.  I am very scared to
> continue!  This happened to me twice today while I was going through and
> disabling GSO/TSO/GRO on my broadcom bnx2 interfaces to fix a serious issue
> we have with inter-Host network traffic.  Is there a way to do this that
> doesn''t involve crashing the dom0 and causing the whole box to
reboot?
> Also, is there a guide to updating the drivers?  I would like to install
the
> latest 357 drivers, but the one time I tried uninstalling them I had a BSOD
> and had to reimage.
> 
What dom0 kernel version are you using? Also what Xen version? 

dom0 crashing when changing settings in the domU is a very serious bug! 


-- Pasi
> 
> Mike
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xen-users-bounces@lists.xen.org [mailto:xen-users-
> > bounces@lists.xen.org] On Behalf Of James Harper
> > Sent: Saturday, June 23, 2012 5:49 AM
> > To: xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> > Subject: [Xen-users] emulated rtl8139 driver, openvswitch, and offload
> > 
> > I''m getting strange network problems when deploying WDS
images,
> > specifically:
> > 
> > DHCP doesn''t seem to renew properly
> > 
> > Tcpdump shows a 5K packet transmitted to the DomU, then retransmitted
as
> > 3 x 1500 byte packets, so presumably large packets are being passed to
> > DomU and the emulated adapter can''t handle them and just
drops them.
> > 
> > This happens even when all the offload on the ovs bridge is off, so I
> don''t
> > know what is happening.
> > 
> > Any suggestions?
> > 
> > James
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Xen-users mailing list
> > Xen-users@lists.xen.org
> > http://lists.xen.org/xen-users
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Xen-users mailing list
> Xen-users@lists.xen.org
> http://lists.xen.org/xen-users

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Pasi Kärkkäinen [mailto:pasik@iki.fi]
> Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2012 11:07 AM
> To: Michael A. Collins
> Cc: ''James Harper''; xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> Subject: Re: [Xen-users] emulated rtl8139 driver, openvswitch, and offload
> 
> On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 08:10:39PM -0400, Michael A. Collins wrote:
> > James,
> >     I have not been able to reliably disable Large Send Offload,
> > Checksum Offload and Scatter/Gather through the device manager GUI on
> > Windows 2008 32bit/64bit with pv_drivers installed.  The Xen Net
> > Device Driver will fail to start and them the dom0 will panic and
> > reboot.  I am very scared to continue!  This happened to me twice
> > today while I was going through and disabling GSO/TSO/GRO on my
> > broadcom bnx2 interfaces to fix a serious issue we have with
> > inter-Host network traffic.  Is there a way to do this that
doesn''t
involve
> crashing the dom0 and causing the whole box to reboot?
> > Also, is there a guide to updating the drivers?  I would like to
> > install the latest 357 drivers, but the one time I tried uninstalling
> > them I had a BSOD and had to reimage.
> >
> 
> What dom0 kernel version are you using? Also what Xen version?
> 
> dom0 crashing when changing settings in the domU is a very serious bug!
> 
> 
> -- Pasi
> 
Linux version: 3.5.0-rc2
Xen version: Xen 4.2 unstable changeset: 25467

I can test with a more recent version or Xen or the kernel this weekend.  I
can capture serial console logs and whatever else is needed.
MIke

On Thu, Sep 06, 2012 at 08:22:57PM -0400, Michael A. Collins
wrote:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Pasi Kärkkäinen [mailto:pasik@iki.fi]
> > Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2012 11:07 AM
> > To: Michael A. Collins
> > Cc: ''James Harper''; xen-users@lists.xensource.com
> > Subject: Re: [Xen-users] emulated rtl8139 driver, openvswitch, and
offload
> > 
> > On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 08:10:39PM -0400, Michael A. Collins wrote:
> > > James,
> > >     I have not been able to reliably disable Large Send Offload,
> > > Checksum Offload and Scatter/Gather through the device manager
GUI on
> > > Windows 2008 32bit/64bit with pv_drivers installed.  The Xen Net
> > > Device Driver will fail to start and them the dom0 will panic and
> > > reboot.  I am very scared to continue!  This happened to me twice
> > > today while I was going through and disabling GSO/TSO/GRO on my
> > > broadcom bnx2 interfaces to fix a serious issue we have with
> > > inter-Host network traffic.  Is there a way to do this that
doesn''t
> involve
> > crashing the dom0 and causing the whole box to reboot?
> > > Also, is there a guide to updating the drivers?  I would like to
> > > install the latest 357 drivers, but the one time I tried
uninstalling
> > > them I had a BSOD and had to reimage.
> > >
> > 
> > What dom0 kernel version are you using? Also what Xen version?
> > 
> > dom0 crashing when changing settings in the domU is a very serious
bug!
> > 
> > 
> > -- Pasi
> > 
> Linux version: 3.5.0-rc2
> Xen version: Xen 4.2 unstable changeset: 25467
> 
> I can test with a more recent version or Xen or the kernel this weekend.  I
> can capture serial console logs and whatever else is needed.
>
Make sure you update your Xen to latest version, and also your dom0 kernel
to at least 3.5.3.

-- Pasi

On 07.09.2012 01:32, Pasi Kärkkäinen wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 06, 2012 at 08:22:57PM -0400, Michael A. Collins wrote:
>> > -----Original Message-----
>> > From: Pasi Kärkkäinen [mailto:pasik@iki.fi]
>> > Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2012 11:07 AM
>> > To: Michael A. Collins
>> > Cc: 'James Harper'; xen-users@lists.xensource.com
>> > Subject: Re: [Xen-users] emulated rtl8139 driver, openvswitch, and
>> offload
>> >
>> > On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 08:10:39PM -0400, Michael A. Collins 
>> wrote:
>> > > James,
>> > >     I have not been able to reliably disable Large Send
Offload,
>> > > Checksum Offload and Scatter/Gather through the device
manager
>> GUI on
>> > > Windows 2008 32bit/64bit with pv_drivers installed.  The Xen
Net
>> > > Device Driver will fail to start and them the dom0 will panic
>> and
>> > > reboot.  I am very scared to continue!  This happened to me 
>> twice
>> > > today while I was going through and disabling GSO/TSO/GRO on
my
>> > > broadcom bnx2 interfaces to fix a serious issue we have with
>> > > inter-Host network traffic.  Is there a way to do this that 
>> doesn't
>> involve
>> > crashing the dom0 and causing the whole box to reboot?
>> > > Also, is there a guide to updating the drivers?  I would like
to
>> > > install the latest 357 drivers, but the one time I tried 
>> uninstalling
>> > > them I had a BSOD and had to reimage.
>> > >
>> >
>> > What dom0 kernel version are you using? Also what Xen version?
>> >
>> > dom0 crashing when changing settings in the domU is a very serious
>> bug!
>> >
>> >
>> > -- Pasi
>> >
>> Linux version: 3.5.0-rc2
>> Xen version: Xen 4.2 unstable changeset: 25467
>>
>> I can test with a more recent version or Xen or the kernel this 
>> weekend.  I
>> can capture serial console logs and whatever else is needed.
>>
>
> Make sure you update your Xen to latest version, and also your dom0 
> kernel
> to at least 3.5.3.
>
> -- Pasi


I have not been able to reproduce this at home, but I'm not using 
Broadcom nics.  I have intel nics, so I'm thinking it's related to 
Broadcom.  I will need to test this at the office, so it'll be a few 
days before I get anything of substance.
Mike


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