FYI: Problem in current SLES11 SP1 Kernel (2.6.32.59-0.3) withrr-bonding

[Ulrich Windl]

Hi!

I just wanted to let you know that we see a problem since we upgraded to SLES 11 SP1 kernel 2.6.32.59-0.3 on x86_64:

The machines have several NICs using "Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5706/5708/5709/5716 Driver" 2.0.4. Two of the NICs are used for a round-robin bond with ARP monitoring.

The new problem is that after boot the bond master and slaves all seem up, packets go in and out, but no ping works.

Only after I remove and re-add the slaves (one after the other), ping works. Once it works, it continues to work:

# echo -eth2 > /sys/class/net/bond1/bonding/slaves
##wait a bit
# echo +eth2 > /sys/class/net/bond1/bonding/slaves
##wait a bit
# echo -eth3 > /sys/class/net/bond1/bonding/slaves
##wait a bit
# echo +eth3 > /sys/class/net/bond1/bonding/slaves
##wait a bit


Before the kernel update, bonding worked. Unfortunately we don't boot that frequently, so I'm not sure whether it worked all the time.

I also had made another test with two machines and a four-NIC-rr-bond that featured "direct-connect cables" with SLES11 SP2 (kernel 3.2.x).  Here also I had seen unreliable initialization. However after a kernel update, the problem was gone.

For SLES, I suspect that patches around this to cause theproblem (haven't looked into the actual source yet):
- patches.fixes/bonding-start-slaves-with-link-down-for-ARP-monitor.patch:
  bonding: start slaves with link down for ARP monitor
  (bnc#752634).

Regards,
Ulrich


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