RE: [Xen-users] XEN - Broadcom issue: survey

["Boudreau Luc" <luc.boudreau@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

A bit more information on this issue. We decided to buy another NIC (other than 
Broadcom). The part number is NC110T from HP. It's an Intel gigabit server NIC. 
The problem still happens, thus eliminating the NIC problem. The card has the 
latest firmware and the latest drivers (e1000 ver. 7.6.9.1-1).

The problem is still happening when we transfer large files through a 
domU->External. It doesn't happen when transferring dom0->External. It is not a 
simple tcp_timewait issue since the problem doesn't resolve itself after the 
tcp timeout.

Is there anything I can test from me new setup that would help investigate ?

______________________________________________________

Luc Boudreau
Registrariat, Université de Montréal


-----Message d'origine-----
De : xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 
[mailto:xen-users-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] De la part de Pezza
Envoyé : 15 novembre 2007 21:44
À : xen-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Objet : Re: [Xen-users] XEN - Broadcom issue: survey


Steven,

thank you for your suggestions.


Steven Smith-9 wrote:
> 
> vifX.Y interfaces are only used to send packets to PV network devices
> in the guest.  Pure HVM domains (those without any PV drivers) send
> all packets over the relevant tapX interface instead.  Errors observed
> on the vif interface are therefore completely irrelevant in this case.
> If the tap device has nothing strange then you'll have to look
> somewhere else.
> 
Ok that's a very good hint.

So far, this is the status:

Steven Smith-9 wrote:
> 
> -- Do you see the same problems with dom0<->domU networking?  If so,
> it would be a good idea to fix that before worrying about problems
> with the NIC.  Packets which don't need to leave the host don't touch
> the physical hardware.
> 
Dom0<->DomU is showing the same problem and, yes, you're right: probably
it's not a network card related issue at this point...


Steven Smith-9 wrote:
> 
> -- I understand you're seeing connections stall for significant
> periods of time, and that this happens across a wide variety of
> services, yes?  It would be interesting to know if other connections
> to the same VM continue working when this happens.
> 
Yes they do.


Steven Smith-9 wrote:
> 
> -- Is there a firewall enabled in the guest?  Turning it off might
> help.  The dom0 firewall might also be relevant, although that's less
> likely.
> 
I disabled firewalling in Dom0 and in DomU to take it out of the loop.

I tried again with another machine (which is running Xen 3.0.4), and, on the
same network (which is a gigabit network), it works fine. It's slow of
course (no PV), but there's no corruption and it's stable.

I'm willing to try to uninstall Xen 3.1 and try with 3.0.3 (the current Xen
release for CentOS 5), maybe there is something else hidden somewhere in the
background.

                                                                                
             
M.
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