broadcom network cards kernel panics

[Patrick Schreurs]

Hi Bas,

I'm not sure if we've seen "EIP: bnx2_poll_work", but we start to loose 
confidence in the bnx2 driver.

We do see some sort of network corruption on 'high' network loads. 
Applications which use ssl (for example nagios nrpe) stop functioning 
and ssh says:

  ssh host
  Received disconnect from UNKNOWN: 2: Bad packet length 172649907.

An ifdown/ifup seems to solve the problem, but the problems reoccurs 
within hours. A reboot seems to solve the problem for a longer period. 
This issue can't be related to the network equipment, because they have 
been replaced.

When we replace the bnx2 for another nic (e1000 for example) the problem 
disappears.

We've also seen crashes which might be bnx2 related.

Hardware is 1950/2950. OS is debian etch. Kernel is 2.6.27.x of 2.6.28.x

Cheers,

-Patrick

Bas van der Vlies wrote:
> Our 1950 servers with broadcom network cards sometimes crashes with:
> {{{
> EIP: bnx2_poll_work
> }}}
> 
> bnx2 module version:
> {{{
> Broadcom NetXtreme II Gigabit Ethernet Driver bnx2 v1.8.1 (Oct 7, 2008)
> }}}
> 
> OS:
>  debian etch
> 
> kernel:
>  currently 2.6.28 but earlier version had same problems
> 
> 
> 
> Do other sites experience these problesm and have a solution for it?
> 
> regards
> 
>