packet loss on ixgbe using vlans and ipv6

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 10:25:42PM +0200, John Hay wrote:
> I have a Dell T710 with 4 X 10G ethernet interfaces (2 X Dual port Intel
> 82599 cards). It is running FreeBSD RELENG_8 last updated on July 13.
> 
> What I see is packet loss (0 - 40%) on IPv6 packets in vlans, when the
> machine is not the originator of the packets.
> 
> Let me try to describe a little more. If a neigbouring machine ping6 it,
> there will be packet loss. If it act as a router for ipv6, there will be
> packet loss. This happen even when the network is pretty idle and with
> different switches (Nortel and Cisco equipment). The packet loss is
> very fluctuating. Pinging 1000 packets might loose 1% one time and the
> next time 30%. Looking with tcpdump, I can see the packets arriving and
> going out, but the packet never arrive at the next machine. (My feeling is
> that they get lost inside the card.) The error counters on the switch
> does not increment.
> 
> I do not see packet loss if the machine originate the packets, for example
> ping6 from the machine. Also ipv4 packets do not have any packets loss. If
> I do not use vlans, I don't see packet loss with ipv6 either.
> 
> pciconf -l of the ethernet cards:
>
> ix0 at pci0:129:0:0:       class=0x020000 card=0x00038086 chip=0x10fb8086 rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
> ix1 at pci0:129:0:1:       class=0x020000 card=0x00038086 chip=0x10fb8086 rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
> ix2 at pci0:131:0:0:       class=0x020000 card=0x00038086 chip=0x10fb8086 rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
> ix3 at pci0:131:0:1:       class=0x020000 card=0x00038086 chip=0x10fb8086 rev=0x01 hdr=0x00

Can you provide pciconf -lvc output for the ix[0-3] cards instead?  I
believe Jack Vogel will need this.  vmstat -i might also be helpful
(full output).

Thanks!

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                   jdc at parodius.com |
| Parodius Networking                       http://www.parodius.com/ |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                  Mountain View, CA, USA |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.              PGP: 4BD6C0CB |