SunFire X2200 ilo's bge1 DOWN/UP

[Jeremy Chadwick]

On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 10:57:22AM +0300, Daniel Braniss wrote:
> --------
> [...]
> > 1. r248226 in head was MFC'd to stable/9 as r248858.  Validation:
> > 
> > http://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/stable/9/sys/dev/bge/if_bge.c?view=log
> > 
> > So the answer: whether or not you have that MFC in stable/9 depends on
> > what SVN rev your kernel is.
> 
> I do a svnsync then I convert to mercurial so from the svn logs I see that
> the highest rev number is 250960.
> 
> [...]
> > <rant>
> > That "piggybacking" crap never should have been invented.  All it has
> > done is cause problems for every OS I know of (including Windows) since
> > its inception, and is also exactly why today almost all vendors I've
> > seen provide a dedicated NIC and RJ45 port for the iLO/IPMI interface.
> > It's admission the "piggybacking" method doesn't work.  And may it rot
> > in hell for all I care, while simultaneously feeling very sorry for
> > those who have to suffer/deal with it.
> > 
> > This is just another reason why I've always been very picky about what
> > hardware I'd buy for server deployments.  Vendors never actually
> > disclose this crap until you've shelled out money for the hardware, by
> > which point it's too late and you're suffering.  Really great model --
> > for the pocketbook.  :/
> > </rant>
> 
> I couldn't agree more!
> 
> [...]
> 
> in the case of the SunFire X2200, it has 4 bge ports, the
> 2nd, bge1, is only used by the ilo, it's not enabled (UP'ed),
> it doesn't have an interrupt assigned, it's, as far as I can tell,
> just anoying to have the DOWN/UP messages - unless something more sinester
> is lurking.

Does output from "ps -auxwwwwH | grep kernel/bge" show anything for
bge1?

What about "vmstat -i -a" (you might be surprised about the -a flag and
what shows up compared to just using -i).  Gut feeling says it will show
up there.  (See vmstat(8) for what -a does)

Possibly interrupt generation isn't what's "triggering" the bge(4)
device to see link going up/down; maybe this is done via some memory
mapped I/O, which would explain why "vmstat -i" shows nothing for bge1
(no interrupts ever generated).

That doesn't change the fact that the driver still is being told via
some means that link is going up/down.

Just a general FYI (probably not relevant here too much, but I often
have to point it out for younger SAs (not saying anyone here is one,
but the list is archived...)): there is a very distinct difference
between a link being physically up/down vs. administratively up/down.

With *IX ifconfig, the social assumption is that there's a 1:1
correlation between those (especially with Ethernet devices), when in
reality it depends on the device driver and all subsystems in between.
I remember quite clearly on some OSes (can't remember if BSD or Linux or
Solaris) where "ifconfig xxx down" on certain devices would still result
in packets being passed across xxx.  This used to shock me when I was
younger, but nowadays doesn't because I have a better understanding of
why.

ifconfig is just a generic tool that interfaces with a lot of things and
tries to do too much, in my opinion.  On BSD we tend to cram as much
crap into ifconfig as humanly possible, while on other OSes separate
per-device tools/utilities have been developed to segregate the
intended behaviours/desires.

-- 
| 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 |