Re: RTL-Poll Error and <sleep> for ever

[Marty Connor <mdc@thinguin.org>]

On 1/18/2000 4:29 PM dirk@goe.net Dirk von Suchodoletz wrote:
>If I remove the TP-cable and plug it in again, the machine boots
>regularly. This doesn't work if the cable is connected and machine was in
><sleep> modus awhile...

I took a look at the rtl8139 driver code, and there may be some error 
recovery problems. I have put a test version of rtl8139.c on 
http://www.thinguin.org/ (18 Jan 2000 entry) that has some changes that 
should make error recovery more robust. 

You'll need to do something like:

   $ cd etherboot-4.4.1/src
   $ mv rtl8139.c rtl8139.c.orig
   $ cp ~someplace/rtl8139.c .
   $ cd ../src-32
   $ make rtl8139.fd0

Please let us know how this works.

> ... 
>If I start a set of 20 terminals at the same time about 5 do not start
>without user interaction because of the problems described above.

The last problem you described could have something to do with your 
tftpd. Are you running a standalone tftpd or under inetd?  I have heard 
that it is possible to confuse inetd into believing that you are 
attempting a denial of service attack by starting too many tftps at once.

# in /etc/inetd.conf
tftp    dgram   udp     wait.1024  root  /usr/sbin/tcpd in.tftpd  
/tftpboot

the ".1024" specifies the max number of instances of the tftp daemon that 
may be spawned in a 60 second period.  You may need to increase your 
number. The default is 40, I believe.

Anyway, please try the new version of rtl8139.c (anyone else is welcome 
to as well).  It shouldn't be any worse, and may very well solve your 
problem.  I await your results.

Regards,

Marty

---
   Name: Martin D. Connor
US Mail: Entity Cyber, Inc.; P.O. Box 391827; Cambridge, MA 02139; USA
  Voice: (617) 491-6935, Fax: (617) 491-7046 
  Email: mdc@thinguin.org
    Web: http://www.thinguin.org/


===========================================================================
This Mail was sent to netboot mailing list by:
Marty Connor <mdc@thinguin.org>
To get help about this list, send a mail with 'help' as the only string in
it's body to majordomo@baghira.han.de. If you have problems with this list,
send a mail to netboot-owner@baghira.han.de.