Network problems with 1950 and Xen

[Matthias Saou]

Ronan Mullally wrote :

> I've run into problems with a 1950 that I'm trying to run Xen on.
> Once xend starts and creates its bridges the dom0 looses network access
> (inbound traffic isn't seen).
> 
> I've done a bit of digging and it looks like it's a firmware problem on
> the Broadcom ethernet cards - see:
> 
>   http://mywiki.ncsa.uiuc.edu/wiki/Dell_PE1950_NIC_Firmware_Workaround
> 
> This page mentions that there was a fix due from Dell at the end of last
> year, but as far as I'm aware all the firmware on my box is up to date and
> I'm still running into the problem.
> 
> Has the fix yet to be released by Dell?

I'm running RHEL5 Xen Hosts on PE1950s and PE2950s without seeing this
problem. Have you looked closer at the logs? Were you able to check the
network configuration after loosing the connection?

I do notice that all network connectivity gets lost for a few seconds
when xend starts, even to the DRAC IP address shared on eth0.

But the only real "problems" I'm seeing with Xen Hosts and my networking
setups are :
- Static routes get discarded by the xend startup script.
- When a non-xen bridge is already configured, the xend startup script
removes the default gateway.

This of course might very well be RHEL5 xend script specific.

Matthias

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