Apparent fxp regression in FreeBSD 8.4-RC3

Josh Paetzel jpaetzel at FreeBSD.org
Fri May 24 05:27:56 UTC 2013


At this point fxp hardware is over a decade old. I'm loath to introduce delays at the end of the runway for this issue. 

Keep in mind that delays to 8.4 are pushed directly on to delays for 9.2, which won't be started until 8.4 is completed, and is desperately needed. (9.1 doesn't have drivers for common shipping hardware for example). Factors like these as well as the age of fxp hardware drive my decision to complete 8.4 and push this fix in to EN territory. 

Thanks,

Josh Paetzel
FreeBSD - The Power to Serve

On May 23, 2013, at 10:11 PM, Jeremy Chadwick <jdc at koitsu.org> wrote:

> 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 |


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