HP-UX 11i error: tcpdump: recv_ack: promisc_phys: UNIX error - Device busy

[Stefan Puiu]

Hello,

I have an HP-UX 11i PA-RISC box with the latest patch bundles (GOLDBASE/GOLDAPPS from June 2004 IIRC) installed and I'm trying to use ethereal 0.10.5 (installed from HP Internet Express) to sniff some traffic. I also have libpcap from HPIE, and I've also installed tcpdump and libpcap from the "the Software Porting And Archive Centre for HP-UX" at http://hpux.cs.utah.edu/. Neither of them works, both tcpdump and ethereal failing with this strange message:

tcpdump: recv_ack: promisc_phys: UNIX error - Device busy

(for ethereal, replace 'tcpdump' with ethereal, and the error message appears after starting a capture)

I've looked in the Ethereal docs and there are some instructions on setting promiscuous mode on HP-UX 11i. However, running "echo 'lanc_outbound_promisc_flag/W 1' | adb -w /stand/vmunix /dev/mem" as they advise yields "symbol not found".

Any ideas? Any more info I should provide?

Output of lanscan:

Hardware Station Crd Hdw Net-Interface NM MAC HP-DLPI DLPI
Path Address In# State NamePPA ID Type Support Mjr#
8/0/20/0 0x001083352BBA 0 UP lan0 snap0 1 ETHER Yes 119

[Steven E. Protter]

ioscan -fnC lan

test the lan card with mstm cstm or xstm

landadmin -x 0


I suspect hardware or configuration problems.

SEP

[Stefan Puiu]

Hello and thanks for replying,

here's the output of the ioscan and lanadmin commands.

[root@hpux /root]# ioscan -fnC lan
Class I H/W Path Driver S/W State H/W Type Description
=====================================================================
lan 0 8/0/20/0 btlan CLAIMED INTERFACE HP PCI 10/100Base-TX Core
/dev/diag/lan0 /dev/ether0 /dev/lan0
[root@hpux /root]# lanadmin -x 0
Current Config = 100 Full-Duplex AUTONEG

About the mstm/cstm part, I suppose I have a bit of RTFM-ing to do.

[Xianjie Zhang · Accepted solution]

Do you have other application, e.g., snoop, which has already turned on promiscuous physical mode on lan0?
I think only one "unbound" promiscuous application is allowed in HP-UX 11i. ( I assume you did not run tcpdump and ethereal in the same time. Did you? )

[Stefan Puiu]

No, I didn't run tcpdump and ethereal in the same time. It would be kind of hard, since both fail to start a capture right away :).

As far as I know, I don't have any other app that has put lan0 in promiscuous mode. nettl doesn't seem to be started:

[root@hpux /root]# nettl -sp
nettl : The tracing and logging facility has not yet been started
To start the facility, execute the following command:
...

[Stefan Puiu]

Hey, actually, it seems there IS an app that uses the DLPI layer, and after stopping it captures work. Too bad I wanted to use ethereal to debug it :). Thanks for the help, folks.

[rick jones]

that lanc_outbound_promisc_flag stuff should only be required on 11.0. I do not believe it should be required on 11i, so if the ethereal documentation mentions it in the context of 11i, a bug needs to be filed against the ethereal code.

[Stefan Puiu]

Rick,

actually the README.hpux in the ethereal source mentions that HP-UX 11i doesn't need any patches in order to use promiscuous mode (the file quotes some messages from google groups, your name comes up in a few). However, it's not clear from those messages if 11i needs the 'adb -w /stand/vmunix ...' hack or not - it's mentioned as necessary for 10.20, but not as being necessary *only* on that version.

It's likely that the person maintaining the README is not an HP-UX expert, so he/she just resorted to quoting external information.

[rick jones]

Go ahead and bring the ambiguity to the attention of the ethereal folks. I think I know who that would be but I'm not sure I'll remember to contact them in my Copious Spare Cycles (tm). Thanks.