bce(4) on the Dell PE 2950

[Vladislav V. Prodan]

16.04.2013 21:34, David Christensen wrote:
>> | > Specifically, we've seen that newer (9 and higher) have issues with
>> | > the doing initial setup and negotiation and that Dell did indeed
>> | > release newer firmware to fix the issues.  This requires a full
>> | > reboot into Linux (probably centos6) to get the update to execute.
>> |
>> | I could be wrong but I *think* that the firmware is loaded on device
>> | initialization, so there may be a chance that the driver can do it
>> | when starting?  Additionally, maybe one can leverage the kernel
>> | firmware(9) framework so that the firmware can be more easily updated
>> | by user?
> 
> The 5706/5708/5709/5716 devices have a set of RISC processors.  One is
> loaded from NVRAM based firmware (MCP) while the others are loaded by
> firmware embedded in the driver.  The MCP firmware is loaded at device
> power-on when the system is plugged into a socket in order to provide
> pre-OS access to the system (think Dell DRAC).
> 

I have a DELL PowerEdge 2950 server (3rd generation). There is a network
card with chipset bce BCM5708.

If a ready algorithm for getting rid of interface resetting / watchdog
timeout?

Thanks.


> There's a chicken and egg problem with your suggestion for firmware(9) 
> support of the MCP firmware.  Not only does MCP firmware provide pre-OS 
> services but it also provides FreeBSD driver services.  There are shared
> resources on the device which require synchronization between multiple
> FreeBSD driver instances and the MCP acts as an arbitrator for them.
> 
> Additionally, I have some security concerns about making NVRAM write 
> functionality easily accessible through the driver since it would be fairly
> easy to take down a system and require a motherboard swap to fix the
> problem.  There's always a concern that a power-event could interrupt
> an NVRAM upgrade and make the system unusable so I think it's 
> important to have the system administrator's blessings before making
> any NVRAM changes to firmware.  Not sure how to accomplish that
> without making the driver load process interactive.
> 

-- 
Vladislav V. Prodan
System & Network Administrator
http://support.od.ua
+380 67 4584408, +380 99 4060508
VVP88-RIPE