watchdog timout with FreeBSD 8.2

[YongHyeon PYUN]

On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 06:08:21PM -0700, Jim Pazarena wrote:
> YongHyeon PYUN wrote, On 2011-03-12 5:27 PM:
> >On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 03:39:38PM -0800, Jim Pazarena wrote:
> >>re0: watchdog timeout       (using AMD64 version)
> >>
> >>with FreeBSD 8.1, I never experienced this 'ever'.
> >>with v 8.2, it doesn't quit, and the server is useless.
> >>
> >>I am going to re-load 8.1 to see if I am delusional,
> >>or if 8.2 really has changed something.
> >>
> >
> >Show us more information like dmesg output to know which controller
> >you have. If you know a reliable way that triggers the issue it
> >would be helpful to narrow down that issue.
> >
> 
> I am sorry for this blast of information.
> Luckily plain flat text doesn't take up too too much bandwidth.
> This is a backup server, and the machine for the most part is
> sitting idle. No jobs running, other than an occasional rsync
> to the server sitting beside it which is the main machine.
> 
> 
> requested dmesg follows, and I will very much appreciate
> comments.
> 
> Copyright (c) 1992-2011 The FreeBSD Project.
> Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
> 	The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
> FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation.
> FreeBSD 8.2-RELEASE #0: Thu Feb 17 02:41:51 UTC 2011
>     root at mason.cse.buffalo.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC amd64

[...]

> re0: <RealTek 8168/8111 B/C/CP/D/DP/E PCIe Gigabit Ethernet> port 
> 0xee00-0xeeff mem 0xfdaff000-0xfdafffff irq 19 at device 0.0 on pci2
> re0: Using 1 MSI messages
> re0: Chip rev. 0x38000000
> re0: MAC rev. 0x00000000
> miibus0: <MII bus> on re0
> rgephy0: <RTL8169S/8110S/8211B media interface> PHY 1 on miibus0
> rgephy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 10baseT-FDX-flow, 100baseTX, 
> 100baseTX-FDX, 100baseTX-FDX-flow, 1000baseT, 1000baseT-master, 
> 1000baseT-FDX, 1000baseT-FDX-master, 1000baseT-FDX-flow, 
> 1000baseT-FDX-flow-master, auto, auto-flow
> re0: Ethernet address: 00:1b:fc:1d:bc:71
> re0: [FILTER]

It seems your controller is old RTL8168B PCIe GbE controller. I
also have the same controller but I didn't see watchdog timeout
issues here. Since re(4) periodically cleans up transmitted frames
the only guess I have is MSI issue. Could you try disable MSI and
let me know whether it makes any difference on your box? Just add
the following line to /boot/loader.conf file and reboot to make
change effect.

hw.re.msi_disable="1"