[Avila] Problem with wds bridging on avila board

Mon May 14 20:12:37 EDT 2007

Hi,

I have repeasted the problem with the 2348 boards and everything works as 
expected.

The problem is limited to the 2347 boards, and I have tried several 
different boards, including my newest ones which should be the last 
revision.

Are there some patches I need to apply for the 2347 board?  Maybe I didn't 
allow all the ixp Components/Codelets and that I need?  Is there 
documentation on what all these mean somewhere?  I have never found them.

With the 2347 the error I get in the logs is

<14>Jan  1 00:00:24 kernel: br0: port 2(ath0) entering forwarding state
<14>Jan  1 00:00:24 kernel: br0: topology change detected, propagating
<14>Jan  1 00:00:24 kernel: br0: port 1(ixp0) entering forwarding state
<12>Jan  1 00:00:58 kernel: ixp0: received packet with  own address as 
source address
<12>Jan  1 00:00:58 last message repeated 1 time(s)
<86>Jan  1 00:00:58 dropbear[931]: Child connection from 
192.168.100.170:1657
<12>Jan  1 00:00:58 kernel: ixp0: received packet with  own address as 
source address
<12>Jan  1 00:01:00 last message repeated 6 time(s)

This error does not appear with the 2348.

This is using the exact same software image and settings; only difference is 
in the boards.  The occasional ping does get through however.

Joel Lindsay, B.Eng
Project Engineer
WaveTeq Communications
(250) 766-9229

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tim Harvey" <tim_harvey at yahoo.com>
To: "Avila" <avila at lists.unixstudios.net>
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 10:31 AM
Subject: RE: [Avila] Problem with wds bridging on avila board
Subject: [Avila] > Joel,
>
> I have not heard of anyone porting the GPL driver back to 2.6.15 - it was
> originally written for something around 2.6.18 and is only maintained for 
> the
> newer kernels.  Its possible to port back but you'll have to take care of 
> the
> fact that certain kernel API's (like the mutex stuff you ran into) has 
> changed.
> Personally, if your going to expend that effort, your better off moving 
> your
> environment up to a more recent kernel.  Of course, its always a moving 
> target.
>
> If you follow the patches at
> http://trac.nslu2-linux.org/kernel/browser/trunk/patches you can patch the
> standard linux kernel to support your avila board.  If you run into 
> problems,
> you can post to either the NSLU project or here for help from the people 
> here
> that have done this (I know of at least two others on this list that have
> patched their own kernel up).  I believe there is also at least one VAR 
> that I
> know of on this list that will sell you a debian based kernel devel system 
> that
> supports the gateworks boards.
>
> With regards to your bridging issue:
>
> Its definitely not the IAL as I do what your doing with both the IAL and 
> the
> GPL drivers.  I don't like the IAL personally because its not GPL and 
> therefore
> not part of the mainstream kernel, which simply makes it a major pain to 
> update
> kernels as you have to port the IAL to the new kernel, but I also do not 
> have
> any issues with the IAL driver's performance or functionality.  You can 
> search
> this list for numerous discussions about this topic.  I have done a simple
> throughput test with both drivers (2.6.15-uc0 + IAL NPE vs 2.6.19 + GPL 
> NPE)
> and did not find a significant performance difference.  I 'always' use the
> 'npe_learning=0' mod param as I've been told that the npe_learning feature 
> has
> had memory leaks in the past (never confirmed this myself and am not sure 
> if it
> was fixed).
>
> I have experienced an issue with some early 2347 boards where the PHY 
> would not
> maintain a 100mbps link with certain phy's of other equipment I was using. 
> The
> 2347 uses a phy that is different from all the other IXP based boards I 
> know of
> and its not entirely supported in the kernel/driver your using.  I can't 
> say
> for sure this is what your seeing (I don't see it with 'newer' boards).
>
> Can you repeat your issue with 2348's?
>
> Tim
>
> --- Joel Lindsay <joel at waveteq.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Tim,
>>
>> I am using the 2.6.15 kernel, as that is what came with my avila dev kit 
>> and
>> I haven't upgraded.  Do you know if this will work with the GPL drivers?
>>
>> I am using Gateworks 2347 board with atheros and madwifi.
>>
>> The thing that struck me as most odd was that the problem only occurred 
>> when
>> connected to my LAN (with all the associated network and broadcast 
>> traffic)
>> but it worked perfectly when just straight bridging 2 laptops.  This was
>> very similar to what I saw with the intel drivers before using
>> npe_learning=0, which is why I thought they might be related.
>>
>> Maybe I will need to upgrade my kernel and try out the GPL drivers, or
>> possibly the problem is something else.  I have had some ideas from some
>> other board users that I will try.
>>
>> Thanks for the help!
>>
>> Joel
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Tim Harvey [mailto:tim_harvey at yahoo.com]
>> Sent: May 13, 2007 8:51 PM
>> To: Avila
>> Subject: Re: [Avila] Problem with wds bridging on avila board
>>
>> Joel,
>>
>> What board are you using?  What are you using for WiFi/WDS (Atheros cards 
>> w/
>> madwifi?).  I assume your setting everything up on the same subnet 
>> (bridge)
>> vs
>> routing?  I do what your talking about all the time both with the IAL and
>> GPL
>> NPE drivers.
>>
>> As for the GPL NPE driver, I've had it working on 2.6.18 and 2.6.19 using
>> the
>> patches at http://trac.nslu2-linux.org/kernel/browser/trunk/patches.  I
>> noticed
>> that they no longer have the 2.6.18/19 patches there but you should find
>> them
>> if you go back in their subversion rev's you'll find them.  I have no 
>> reason
>> to
>> believe the patches they have for 2.6.20/21 would give you any compile
>> problems, I just haven't moved to that kernel.  I never had any compile
>> issues
>> but I could see issues if your trying to put the driver on other 
>> kernels -
>> there were a few changes that affect the driver between 2.6.18-2.6.21
>>
>> Tim
>>
>> --- Joel Lindsay <joel at waveteq.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > I am seeing a weird problem.  When I create a wds link between 2 avila
>> > boards with a laptop connected on both ends, everything works just as
>> > expected.  When I take one end and put it on my network, suddenly I 
>> > can't
>> > ping past the board on that network side.  Its like the packets are 
>> > being
>> > dropped, but only when its part of a larger network (switch, then 
>> > router)
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > It seems very similar to a former problem that was caused by multicast
>> > traffic and was solved by setting the argument npe_learning=0 when
>> > modprobing the ethernet driver.  This leads me to believe it is again a
>> ixp
>> > npe problem.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > I have tried compiling the GPL Ethernet driver to see if this helps, 
>> > but
>> am
>> > having no luck as I keep getting mutex errors that I can't seem to make 
>> > go
>> > away.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Has anyone seen this problem before?  Anyone know how to fix it?  Is it
>> > another npe problem?
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Any help appreciated.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Joel Lindsay
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
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