Detected a faulty or disconnected cable

[Mark Fisher_4]

Has anyone ever seen this error message? It occurs when the HP/UX server boots up and appears to occur when AutoPort Aggregation (APA) starts.

Configure HP AUTO-PORT AGGREGATION interfaces .......................
-------------------100BT/Gigabit Ethernet LAN/9000 Networking---------------@#%
Fri Oct 07 CDT 2005 14:37:02.497783 ERROR Subsys:IETHER Loc:00000

<2000> 1000Base-T in path 6/0/2/1/0
Detected a faulty or disconnected cable.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


This error started to occur after I modified the /etc/rc.config.d/hpietherconf file to force the lan interface to run at 100FD. I did this because the interface was always starting in auto sense half duplex mode. The entry in the file looks like:

HP_IETHER_INTERFACE_NAME[1]=lan1
HP_IETHER_STATION_ADDRESS[1]=
HP_IETHER_SPEED[1]=100fd
HP_IETHER_MTU[1]=1500
HP_IETHER_FLOW_CONTROL[1]=1
HP_IETHER_AUTONEG[1]=0
HP_IETHER_SEND_COAL_TICKS[1]=150
HP_IETHER_RECV_COAL_TICKS[1]=0
HP_IETHER_SEND_MAX_BUFS[1]=1
HP_IETHER_RECV_MAX_BUFS[1]=1
HP_IETHER_VMTU[1]=0
HP_IETHER_ITR_MODE[1]=-1

Even though I get this error, the interface starts up and work properly:

lanadmin -x 1
Speed = 100 Full-Duplex.
Autonegotiation = Off.

Any idea's?

[Victor Fridyev]

Mark,

If the port, where the interface is connected to, is configured as 10HD or 100HD.
You have to configure both interface and its port equally.

HTH

[Mel Burslan]

first off, are you sure lan1 is the guilty interface with the hardware path in the message ? if yes, do you have a block with index [0] in your interface driver configuration file ? If not, it may be complaining for that. You can try changing [1] to [0]. If you have another interface configured with [0] prior to this block in the file, then talk to the network admins to make sure that the switch port this interface connected to nailed down to 100FD hard, not floating or not set to 10 M-Bit and/or half duplex configuration. Last but not the least, make sure your cable/connector has not been dislocated by an accident.

[Steven E. Protter]

Why is APA talking about a 1000 BaseT interface when you are happy with 100 BaseT?

Here is something to know about HP NIC's.

100 BaseT and slower will only work properly with manual(explicit) settings and no auto negotiation.

1000 BaseT NIC cards will only work properly with auto negotiate.

I've got a few 100's working in my personal lab here with auto negotiate and get terrible connectivity issues, to the point where Serviceguard can't detect the nodes in the cluster.

Mixing 100 cards and 1000 cards in a APA configuration brings the two items above into conflict and will likely lead to all kinds of problems.

SEP

[Jay Kidambi · Accepted solution]

Mark,

You may ignore this message because the 'link down' condition is only transient. The power-on default configuration of the Gigabit Ethernet NIC is to Auto-Negotiate. In your case the NIC runs in this mode during reboot until the driver's RC script runs. Since you have specified the 100fd mode in the configuration file, the link will be brought down to reconfigure to the requested manual speed. This 'link down' event is expected to be transient and doesn't last long, as in your case.

The confusion about the error message you are seeing results from the fact that the nettl (1M) subsystem logs only ERROR and DISASTER type messages to the console by default. So even if the link comes back up online immediately as in your case, you won't know it because the 'link up' message is not an ERROR or a DISASTER. If you enable the nettl INFORMATIVE messages, you will see in the nettl log that the 'link down' is followed by a 'link up'.

Jay

[Darrel Louis]

Mark,

How many Network cards do you have in the server.?
what's the output of:
- ioscan -fnClan
- lanscan

Are you sure that the switch port is configured for 100FD and not 1000FD?

GoodLuck

Darrel