amd64/143822: ALE driver refuses to accept IPv6 Router Advertisements

[John Kent]

>Number:         143822
>Category:       amd64
>Synopsis:       ALE driver refuses to accept IPv6 Router Advertisements
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-amd64
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          sw-bug
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Thu Feb 11 20:40:02 UTC 2010
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     John Kent
>Release:        8.0-RELEASE
>Organization:
-
>Environment:
FreeBSD BaseStation.KENT 8.0-RELEASE FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE #0: Sat Nov 21 15:02:08 UTC 2009     root at mason.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64
>Description:
The ale driver (device ale0) does not respond to ipv6 router advertisements or neighbor advertisements, unless the machine is running tcpdump on the interface.  (in promiscuous mode).

The dc driver (linksys card in the same machine) responds immediately to both of these icmp6 packets and configures the interface and ndp appropriately without the tcpdump step.

>How-To-Repeat:
This is repeatable across reboots.  The machine can be up for 10 hours and never configure the ipv6 address on ale0, and running the tcpdump -i ale0 icmp6 will cause the nic to configure with the next router advertisement.  Same with neighbor discovery as viewed through ndp.

Forcing 'rtsol -fD ale0' reports that no responses have been received.  When tcpdump is running, the same command receives a response on the first solicitation.
>Fix:
Unknown.

>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: