Network connectiong with gelan

[Alex Lavrov]

Hello all,
well, I have a most strange problem I ever seen in HPUX,
I wasted time of 2 senior system administrators, HP technitian and someone in HP helpdesk, but nothing helped, I hope you will. Well, my story goes like this:

My task was to check out vitual partitions on HPUX11i (superdome machine). I installed two vpars one got 100Mb network adapter, another got 1Gb adapter. 100Mb is working just fine, but gelan refuses to work. Sounds simple? Yes, BUT ...
I figured out that a problem must be in one of the 3 options:
1. Wrong network settings in the server
2. Bad gelan card
3. Bad network port

well, two different ppl in our company checked the settings, they were ok, HP replaced this card with a new one and checked the settings again, I connected another server with the 1Gb port I got for my server and it worked, so:
1. Settings are ok
2. Card is OK (new)
3. 1Gb port on the patch panel is ok (and cables are OK ofcourse)

I connected my server to another port (working one) it did not helped, but if I connect it peer-to-peer with another server it works!

I brought my machine up without vpars with the regular /stand/vmunix and gelan card still can't ping anyone but himself ...

I don't know what to do, any ideas?

Thank you.

[Steven E. Protter]

Consider the possibility that its switch configuration, not your HP-UX box.

If the switch can't handle Gigabit networking OR its hard coded to 100 Base T or something stupid, you'll have connectivity issues.

try this when connected.

lanadmin -x lan#

Replace # sign with the number of the NIC inteface. The results should be interesting.

It is possible lanadmin doesn't apply here in which case, ignore me don't assign points. We don't have 1G cards here yet.


SEP

[Alex Lavrov]

Hello,
switch does handles 1G connection, it is 1G switch, and this port works fine with other servers ...

Both box and switch configurations are 1000G full-duplex autonigotiating off

[monasingh_1]

get a cross cable and connect between 100 and gig git interface and see if you can linkloop between them.
Once you can linkloop between them then try configuring the IP and everything else.

Check for latest patches.
Also change the slot for gig bit card and see if that solves the problem..

[Ron Kinner]

Sounds like an IP address conflict. Have you tried pinging that IP address when the gelan card is not connected? Have you tried a different IP address.

If not IP then perhaps a MAC address duplication?

lanadmin
lan
ppa x
display

where x is the ppa of your card. 0, 1, 2, etc are common.
Verify that you are looking at the right card from the speed and then look for Station Address then compare to the switch's arp table to see if the station is already present. It is easy to change this in software on HPUX and I have heard of people cloning systems and copying files and coming up with identical MAC addresses. I think it's in a file like:
etc/rc.config.d/hpetherconf
tho it may change for gig stuff.

Also check that flow control is the same on both ends. If using VLANS make sure that both ends know about the same VLANS and are using the same tagging or both have no tagging.

Ron

[Ron Kinner]

HP has a handy little tool called linkloop which checks for layer 2 connectivity. If linkloop works then it is a layer 3 or higher problem. Check the man on linkloop. It's fairly easy to use. You just need the MAC of another device on the same LAN. If you use the -v option you get a more verbose output which might help determine what is wrong.

Ron

[Ajit Natarajan]

It would be very helpful if you can tell us whether the Gigabit card is a copper or a fiber card.

If it is a copper card, you can only enable Gigabit speed by enabling autonegotiation. A fiber card can only run at 1000Mb/s. You mentioned that you've set the link to 1000Mb/s full duplex with autonegotiate off. I am concerned by that statement.

It would also help if you could send us the following:

1. ioscan output for that card.
2. lanscan output for that instance.
3. lanadmin -x card_info output where is the card instance.
4. /etc/rc.config.d/hpgelanconf entries for that interface.
5. netstat -rn output to show us the routes defined to go over the interface.

That would help us narrow down the problem.

Thanks.

Ajit
HP Gigabit Ethernet

[Alex Lavrov]

lan 1 2/0/14/0/0 gelan CLAIMED INTERFACE HP A4926A PCI 1000Base-SX Adapter

2/0/14/0/0 0x00306E0E86D7 1 UP lan1 snap1 2 ETHER Yes

************ Version Information ***************
Driver version: B.11.11.14
Firmware version: 12.4.12
Chip version: 0x6
PCI Sub-System ID: 0x106f (1000Base-SX)
PCI Sub-Vendor ID: 0x103c
Board Revision: C
Software Key: 6
Engineering Date Code: B-4045

************ Card Settings ****************
Driver State: GELAN_LINK_DOWN
Auto Negotiation: On
Flow Control: On
Send Max Buf Descriptors: 16
Recv Max Buf Descriptors: 1
Send Coalesced Ticks: 1000
Recv Coalesced Ticks: 0

GELAN_LINK_DOWN looks bad, but when it is connected to another computer, it is GELAN ONLINE ...

thanx.

[Juan Manuel López]

I Have had a lot of problems with this IGELAN driver...Our 1Gb Ethernet lan does not work properly.
The solution : Install a new driver versi??n.
Our first versi??n was:
GigEther-01 B.11.11.02
Now we have :
GigEther-01 B.11.11.07.

Try it.

Juanma.

[Robert-Jan Goossens]

Hi,

take a quick look at next link,

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0xa0cb50dde50cd71190050090279cd0f9,00.html

Hope it helps,

Robert-Jan.

[Ajit Natarajan]

Please note that A4926A is controlled by the gelan driver. So, patching the igelan driver as suggested by Juan will not help you.

GELAN_LINK_DOWN implies either that your cable is disconnected, or linking with the switch port failed. It is my opinion that the latter is more likely in your case.

Not being able to link with the switch port means one or more of the following:

1. Your parameter settings in /etc/rc.config.d/hpgelanconf are incorrect.

2. Your parameter settings for the link are incompatible with those of the switch port.

I would recommend the following:

1. If you had set the parameters in /etc/rc.config.d/hpgelanconf and rebooted, /etc/rc.log should contain an error message if there was a problem.

2. If there is a subsequent problem, it should be reported in the NetTL log. To view the NetTL log, do the following:

(a) Determine the most recent NetTL log file:

ls -lt /var/adm/nettl.LOG*

(b) Format the records in the file:

netfmt -f /var/adm/

where is the filename that has the most recent timestamp in step (a).

Let us know if you find anything. Please also send the entries corresponding to the interface in /etc/rc.config.d/hpgelanconf.

Thanks.

Ajit
HP Gigabit Ethernet