Broadcomm NetXtreme BCM5708 NICs and 6.1 RELEASE

[pauls at utdallas.edu]

I'm posting this for documentary purposes in case someone has this problem 
and wants to find the answer.

Under the 6.1 RELEASE, with all sources cvsup'd to current, both world and 
kernel rebuilt, the Broadcommm NetExtreme 5708 NICs will fall over under 
very light load when using a remote connection.  (Console outbound 
connections work fine.)

For example, trying to build apache22 from ports causes the NICs to fail, 
and only a reboot will fix the problem.  The console error message is 
"Error mapping mbuf into TX chain!"

Not good for servers.  :-)

The solution is to update the if_bce.c source to version 0.9.6 from the 
current 0.9.5, then rebuild world and kernel.

Here's a webpage that has a brief explanation and a link to the updated 
source file:
<http://www.ifdnrg.com/freebsd_broadcom_dell_1950.htm>

Paul Schmehl (pauls at utdallas.edu)
Adjunct Information Security Officer
The University of Texas at Dallas
http://www.utdallas.edu/ir/security/