[OpenIndiana-discuss] probable NWAM problems [was Re: REALTEK network card and pppoe config]

[James Carlson]

Robin Axelsson wrote:
> Disabling network interfaces with nwan is no rocket science. If you go
> to e.g. System->Administration->Network,
> you can disable whatever interfaces you want in the GUI by editing
> "network profile". The process is straightforward
> and I didn't read any documentation to get there. The change made the
> disabled interface disappear from ifconfig -a entirely.

Good to hear.

>>> On a system that uses the old-style configuration, that ':nwam' service
>>> is not enabled, and 'svc:/network/physical:default' is instead enabled.
>>> Configuration of that service depends on version, but usually uses
>>> ipadm.  Something like 'ipadm delete-if rge0' should do it, if you were
>>> using that type of configuration.
> 
> I must say that I'm experiencing issues with the network connection, at
> least in the physical host. There are intermittent hiccups in the
> connection when transferring data with CIFS. They are less frequent than
> before when I had both network interfaces enabled and therefore it has
> taken some time for me to discover it.

It's unclear what that problem might be.  There are many possibilities:

  - maybe the interface itself is experiencing errors
  - maybe the server has problems
  - maybe there are other undiagnosed routing problems
  - maybe the bizarre and unfortunate PPPoE 1492 MTU is to blame
  - maybe you're seeing higher-level bugs

I'm afraid you'll need to gather information in order to determine
what's going wrong.  I can suggest a few approaches that will be useful:

  - gather information from the affected subsystems and the system
    itself; sometimes the errors are visible there

  - try isolating particular areas; for example, you could use snoop
    or wireshark to trace the network traffic to see if the problems
    appear to be on the local system or are on some remote system

In any event, reporting a plain text description of the problem is
unlikely to get much attention from anyone who might be able to help.
Hard data is much more valuable.

> Also, after every 4-5 power cycles something gets messed up with the
> VirtualBox vboxflt driver which prevents virtual machines to start up,
> particularly on systems that use the e1000g driver which means any
> system that use Intel based NICs. Some people say that it most likely is
> the nwam that is the culprit of this nuisance.

Sorry; no idea.  I haven't seen that sort of behavior before.

-- 
James Carlson         42.703N 71.076W         <carlsonj at workingcode.com>