FreeBSD nfe driver and IPMI cards

[Pyun YongHyeon]

On Wed, Sep 12, 2007 at 08:20:50AM -0400, Stephen Clark wrote:
 > Pyun YongHyeon wrote:
 > 
 > >On Tue, Sep 11, 2007 at 03:01:53PM -0400, Robert Wojciechowski wrote:
 > >> Hello,
 > >> 
 > >>  
 > >> 
 > >> I'm the FreeBSD nfe driver from  
 > >> http://www.f.csce.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~shigeaki/software/freebsd-nfe.html
 > >> with FreeBSD 6-stable with good results for the most part. The only
 > >> issue I've experienced is that during a detach/shutdown of if_nfe, the
 > >> IPMI IP address I have set on my servers ceases to respond as well as
 > >> the ability to manage the servers.
 > >> 
 > >>  
 > >> 
 > >> I traced the problem down to nfe_stop() and the fact that it completely
 > >> disables the Rx and Tx on the NIC. I have patched the driver to not
 > >> disable the Rx/Tx and IPMI continues to work after a 'ifconfig nfe0
 > >> down', 'shutdown -p now', etc.
 > >> 
 > >>  
 > >> 
 > >> Does anyone have any comments on this change I've made and any possible
 > >> side effects? Can this be included in the mainstream distribution of the
 > >
 > >Because MAC is still alive if's possible to recieve a packet. All DMA
 > >maps are unloaded and buffers are already freed in nfe_stop so it
 > >would cause panic I guess. But I'm not familiar with IPMI so I'm not
 > >sure.
 > >
 > >> nfe drivers (and updated in 7-CURRENT) without causing any adverse
 > >> problems?
 > >> 
 > >
 > >I have no experience on IPMI but the change you've made would not
 > >completely solve the issue. I guess supporting IPMI needs lots of
 > >more work including:
 > >o Autodetect IPMI capability.
 > >o Autodetect active IPMI session in device attach and don't blindly
 > >  reset MAC/PHY.
 > >o Don't blindly stop Tx/Rx on device detach.
 > >Given that lack of publicly available datasheet for the hardware
 > >supporing IPMI would be severly limited. Fortunately Linux seems to
 > >have basic IPMI support in their forcedeth driver. Their code doesn't
 > >easy to read but you may see what should be done in driver. However
 > >I have no idea what we can do when active IPMI session is present in
 > >driver attach phase. Normally PHY driver would reset PHY hardware
 > >itself in driver attach which in turn would result in losing the IPMI
 > >connection.
 > >
 > > 
 > >
 > www.intel.com/design/servers/ipmi
 > 
What we need is documentation for NVIDIA NICs.

-- 
Regards,
Pyun YongHyeon