Apparent fxp regression in FreeBSD 8.4-RC3

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 12:56:20AM -0400, Glen Barber wrote:
> On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 09:40:35PM -0700, Jeremy Chadwick wrote:
> > [...]
> > So if someone wants to take a stab at this, they'll need to do so and
> > make me an ISO.  Sorry that I can't make things easier.  :-(
> > 
> > This definitely needs to get fixed before 8.4-RELEASE.
> > 
> 
> *sigh*....
> 
> At this point, it is highly unlikely this will be fixed before
> 8.4-RELEASE.  We are _far_ too deep into the release cycle.  In fact, we
> are effectively done with the release, and waiting on release notes to
> be completed.
> 
> I think this will likely be included in errata notes for the release.

I urge you to meet with others in Release Engineering and discuss this
fully.  This is major enough that, once fixed, it warrants an immediate
binary update (to the kernel + if_fxp.ko) pushed out via freebsd-update.

fxp(4) is a commonly-used driver; it isn't something rare/uncommon.

Also remember at this stage we don't know if it's a specific PHY model
or specific NIC model (or series) which triggers it.  For all we know it
could affect everything that fxp(4) drives.

Please don't forget that FreeBSD has a very well-established history of
having rock-solid Intel NIC support.  Sure, mistakes happen, we're
human, bugs get introduced, but this does not bode well -- meaning I
would expect Slashdot et al to pick up on this.

> It is very unfortunate that this waited so long to be reported, as much
> time has passed since 8.4-BETA1...

This is what happens when people socially proliferate the belief that
"RELEASE is rock solid/stable, don't run stable/X" -- the number of
people who test what changes between RELEASE builds is vastly smaller
comparatively.  I've only been saying this for the past 15 years, so
it's even more unfortunate that people keep believing it.  :/

-- 
| Jeremy Chadwick                                   jdc at koitsu.org |
| UNIX Systems Administrator                http://jdc.koitsu.org/ |
| Mountain View, CA, US                                            |
| Making life hard for others since 1977.             PGP 4BD6C0CB |