Gen2 strapping - what is this

[Ralf Seefeldt]

Hi all,

I have several RedHat servers, that have a quadport NIC with a old firmware. That's not a problem anymore.

When the NIC starts to fail, there are always several entries in the messages, which are pretty much self descriptive except one:

netxen_NIC 0000:04:00.1: Gen2 strapping detected

I assume that this tells me something like "It was figured out, that the NIC is using bonding with version 2 of some protocol, required to establish bonding on a low layer." But that is only my assumption. Analyzing the driver file, that creates this message (netxen_nic_main.c) would require  lots of time and probably not answer my question.

Can anyone explain to me, what this Gen2 strapping - or strapping at all - is. Or point me to a documentation?

I am not happy with reading any messages entry and not knowing, what really happens on the system.

Thank you for your help.

Bye

Ralf