3 NICs (8139too): too much ?

Hello everybody,

Well, I have a computer I would use as a firewall with 3 network cards.
My NICs are all Surecom with 8139 chipset and I'm using Salckware 9
(2.4.20).

I edited /etc/modules.conf with
alias eth0 8139too
alias eth1 8139too
alias eth2 8139too

/etc/rc.d/rc.netdevice with
/sbin/modprobe 8139too

and /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.
ifconfig displays eth0 eth1 and eth2 with the good configuration.
lspci print the 3 NICs (exactly the same)
lsmod give me the 8139too module loaded
dmesg tells me nothing.
mii-tool tells links ok.

Anyway, I just can't can't ping 2 of my 3 networks. Only eth1 works fine.
Could it be because of my NICs are RTL8139 ? 'cause I also try with (only
2) RTL8019 PnP ISA NIC and I had no problems...

Can anyone help me ?

Thanks.
Paul

Don't know why, now I have a message from the kernel "too much work at
interrupt". What does it mean ?
netstat -rn is OK.

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 17:07:52 +0200, PAUL Anthony wrote:

> Don't know why, now I have a message from the kernel "too much work at
> interrupt". What does it mean ?
> netstat -rn is OK.

It means that al (or at least more than one) of your NIC's are either
working on the same IRQ or on IRQ's used by other hardware.
--
Sometimes one cannot escape living with the burden of regret
Vincent Glotzbach
vglotzb at cs dot vu.nl || vglotzb at glotz-its dot nl
gpg public key at http://www.cs.vu.nl/~vglotzb/vglotzb.asc

PAUL Anthony wrote:

> Don't know why, now I have a message from the kernel "too much work at
> interrupt". What does it mean ?
> netstat -rn is OK.

What I would do if/when I hit this one (only one realtek at the moment)

In /drivers/net/8139too.c find max_interrupt_work and make it bigger and
recompile kernel or whatever bits you can get away with.

Or play about with IRQ assignments - note it is normal for PCI deviced to
share IRQs.

Don't know if either will work.

Andy.

"PAUL Anthony" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news(E-Mail Removed).. .
> Hello everybody,
>
> Well, I have a computer I would use as a firewall with 3 network cards.
> My NICs are all Surecom with 8139 chipset and I'm using Salckware 9
> (2.4.20).
>
> I edited /etc/modules.conf with
> alias eth0 8139too
> alias eth1 8139too
> alias eth2 8139too
>
> /etc/rc.d/rc.netdevice with
> /sbin/modprobe 8139too
>
> and /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.
> ifconfig displays eth0 eth1 and eth2 with the good configuration.
> lspci print the 3 NICs (exactly the same)
> lsmod give me the 8139too module loaded
> dmesg tells me nothing.
> mii-tool tells links ok.
>
> Anyway, I just can't can't ping 2 of my 3 networks. Only eth1 works fine.
> Could it be because of my NICs are RTL8139 ? 'cause I also try with (only
> 2) RTL8019 PnP ISA NIC and I had no problems...

You have to have routes to networks as well as having the cards in ifconfig.

..
Doesnt slackware have a network config tool that meant you could configure
three interfaces and the default gateway ?
You wouldnt have had to add aliases for all three network cards. as long as
the module loads first, the cards will come to life.
(aliasing modules is to get the system to load modules on demand -but
network card modules have to stay loaded while the interface is 'up'. )




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On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 07:24:46 +0200, Leon The Peon wrote:

> You have to have routes to networks as well as having the cards in
> ifconfig.

Yeah, netstat -rn is OK.

> Doesnt slackware have a network config tool that meant you could
> configure three interfaces and the default gateway ?

There is netconfig but it just allows to set the first card.
Perhaps we can set the others but I don't know how...


> You wouldnt have
> had to add aliases for all three network cards. as long as the module
> loads first, the cards will come to life. (aliasing modules is to get
> the system to load modules on demand -but network card modules have to
> stay loaded while the interface is 'up'. )

oh ... so, I don't understand anymore the difference between
/sbin/modprobe 8139too and alias 8139too eth0...

On Fri, 26 Sep 2003 15:56:49 +0200, Vincent Glotzbach wrote:

> It means that al (or at least more than one) of your NIC's are either
> working on the same IRQ or on IRQ's used by other hardware.

It doesn't seem so :

Without NICs:
root@gw:~# more /proc/interrupts
CPU0
0: 13361 XT-PIC timer
1: 116 XT-PIC keyboard
2: 0 XT-PIC cascade
8: 1 XT-PIC rtc
12: 0 XT-PIC PS/2 Mouse
14: 43656 XT-PIC ide0
NMI: 0
ERR: 0

If I plug my NICs, they use IRQ 5, 10 and 11.

Hope I don't have to recompile kernel as Andy said...

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
PAUL Anthony wrote:
> There is netconfig but it just allows to set the first card.
> Perhaps we can set the others but I don't know how...

Edit /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 (add ".conf" for 9.1) and it should be obvious
what to put.

>> You wouldnt have
>> had to add aliases for all three network cards. as long as the module
>> loads first, the cards will come to life. (aliasing modules is to get

This is true. Look in /etc/rc.d/rc.netdevice, which is created by the
netconfig utility. The aliases in /etc/modules.conf are superfluous.
When all NIC's use the same driver, one modprobe command activates them
all: "/sbin/ifconfig -a" will confirm this.

Slackware-specific issues will tend to get better attention in
alt.os.linux.slackware.
--
/dev/rob0 - preferred_email=i$((28*28+28))@softhome.net
or put "not-spam" or "/dev/rob0" in Subject header to reply

On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 19:33:31 +0200, /dev/rob0 wrote:

> Edit /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1 (add ".conf" for 9.1) and it should be obvious
> what to put.

Yes. That's what I've done.
By the way, Slack9.1 with its .conf is very cleaner ! Great.


> This is true. Look in /etc/rc.d/rc.netdevice, which is created by the
> netconfig utility. The aliases in /etc/modules.conf are superfluous.
> When all NIC's use the same driver, one modprobe command activates them
> all: "/sbin/ifconfig -a" will confirm this.

I saw that too. But since it didn't work, I believed it was because slack
didn't know which NIC was working with. Anyway, I understand much better,
thank you, but it still doesn't work...

I don't think it is a Slackware specific problem.

I noticed a new strange behavior: on my eth0, the link LED is blinking ! (not
act or speed LED, but the link one!)
It seems that when we put more than only one 8139too, it doesn't work
anymore (or perhaps it is not because of the chipset but the NIC
manufacturer surecom...)