Marvell 88E80856 switching from static to dhcp configuration all on its own
 

Hi All,

I'm having a strange problem with a Marvell 88E8056 - 10/100/1000
Controller on a Biostar TA 770 A2+ motherboard. This is an Etch AMD64
install, but I have added the 2.6.25-amd64 kernel as I could not get the
Marvell controller to work at all with the 2.6.18 kernel. Other than
that this is pretty much a minimal install. No gui, just a basic system
running dns, dhcp3, mysql 5.0, postgresql 8.1and Apache2 in my test
lab. This system has no contact with the internet other than as a dns
forwarder.


I have two NICs. The onboard Marvell and a 3Com 3c905b. The 3Com
handles dhcp and dns requests. Both are configured for statically
configured IP addresses in /etc/network/interfaces. However, the
Marvell will, after some unknown amount of time--less than 12
hours--drop its static IP address and request a dhcp address from the
3Com adapter. If I do an ifconfig -a it shows the dhcp address, and if
I run nmap against the network--how I found this originally as there was
an unknown IP address showing up and a known good one missing--the dhcp
address shows up. However, if I look at /etc/network/interfaces the
Marvell interface is still set to static, and if I restart networking (
/etc/init.d/networking restart ) the Marvell NIC picks up its static IP
address again.


Below is the output from lscpi -vv concerning the NIC in question.

03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. Unknown
device 4364 (rev 13)

Subsystem: Biostar Microtech Int'l Corp Unknown device 2700
Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop-
ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B-
Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort-
<TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR-

Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 32 bytes
Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 1276
Region 0: Memory at fddfc000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
Region 2: I/O ports at de00 [size=256]
[virtual] Expansion ROM at fdc00000 [disabled] [size=128K]
Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 3
Flags: PMEClk- DSI- D1+ D2+ AuxCurrent=0mA
PME(D0+,D1+,D2+,D3hot+,D3cold+)

Status: D0 PME-Enable- DSel=0 DScale=1 PME-
Capabilities: [50] Vital Product Data
Capabilities: [5c] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+
Queue=0/0 Enable+

Address: 00000000fee0300c Data: 4191
Capabilities: [e0] Express Legacy Endpoint IRQ 0
Device: Supported: MaxPayload 128 bytes, PhantFunc 0,
ExtTag-

Device: Latency L0s unlimited, L1 unlimited
Device: AtnBtn- AtnInd- PwrInd-
Device: Errors: Correctable- Non-Fatal- Fatal- Unsupported-
Device: RlxdOrd- ExtTag- PhantFunc- AuxPwr- NoSnoop-
Device: MaxPayload 128 bytes, MaxReadReq 512 bytes
Link: Supported Speed 2.5Gb/s, Width x1, ASPM L0s L1, Port 3
Link: Latency L0s <256ns, L1 unlimited
Link: ASPM Disabled RCB 128 bytes CommClk+ ExtSynch-
Link: Speed 2.5Gb/s, Width x1
Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting

Hmmm.... It's been 45 minutes since I restarted networking and the
Marvell has already dropped its static IP address and picked up a dhcp
address. Below is the relevant information from syslog after restarting
networking.


Jul 17 09:45:56 lab kernel: [81245.173294] eth0: no IPv6 routers present
Jul 17 09:46:01 lab kernel: [81249.915550] eth1: no IPv6 routers present
Jul 17 09:46:26 lab dhcpd: receive_packet failed on eth0: Network is down
Jul 17 09:46:26 lab kernel: [81275.403919] sky2 eth1: disabling interface
Jul 17 09:46:26 lab dhclient: receive_packet failed on eth1: Network is down
Jul 17 09:46:26 lab kernel: [81275.414464] eth0: setting full-duplex.
Jul 17 09:46:26 lab kernel: [81275.449493] sky2 eth1: enabling interface
Jul 17 09:46:26 lab kernel: [81275.451945] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): eth1:
link is not ready
Jul 17 09:46:29 lab kernel: [81278.425075] sky2 eth1: Link is up at 1000
Mbps, full duplex, flow control both
Jul 17 09:46:29 lab kernel: [81278.427530] ADDRCONF(NETDEV_CHANGE):
eth1: link becomes ready

Jul 17 09:46:36 lab kernel: [81285.424608] eth0: no IPv6 routers present
Jul 17 09:46:39 lab kernel: [81288.428601] eth1: no IPv6 routers present

Jul 17 09:55:19 lab dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 192.168.1.28 port 67
Jul 17 09:55:33 lab last message repeated 3 times

Jul 17 09:55:41 lab dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 192.168.1.28 port 67
Jul 17 09:56:18 lab last message repeated 3 times
Jul 17 09:57:38 lab last message repeated 4 times
Jul 17 09:58:39 lab last message repeated 4 times
Jul 17 09:59:29 lab last message repeated 3 times
Jul 17 10:00:28 lab last message repeated 4 times

This repeats a few more times and then:

Jul 17 10:04:39 lab dhcpd: Wrote 0 deleted host decls to leases file.
Jul 17 10:04:39 lab dhcpd: Wrote 0 new dynamic host decls to leases file.
Jul 17 10:04:39 lab dhcpd: Wrote 7 leases to leases file.

Jul 17 10:06:57 lab dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.40 from
00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0
Jul 17 10:06:57 lab dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.40 to 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df
via eth0

Jul 17 10:07:06 lab dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Jul 17 10:07:06 lab dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.40 from
00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0
Jul 17 10:07:06 lab dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.40 to 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df
via eth0

Jul 17 10:07:14 lab dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Jul 17 10:07:14 lab dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.40 from
00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0
Jul 17 10:07:14 lab dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.40 to 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df
via eth0

Jul 17 10:07:27 lab dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Jul 17 10:07:27 lab dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.40 from
00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0
Jul 17 10:07:27 lab dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.40 to 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df
via eth0

Jul 17 10:07:42 lab dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Jul 17 10:07:42 lab dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.40 from
00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0
Jul 17 10:07:42 lab dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.40 to 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df
via eth0

Jul 17 10:07:50 lab dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Jul 17 10:07:50 lab dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.40 from
00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0
Jul 17 10:07:50 lab dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.40 to 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df
via eth0

Jul 17 10:08:08 lab dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Jul 17 10:08:08 lab dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.40 from
00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0
Jul 17 10:08:08 lab dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.40 to 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df
via eth0

Jul 17 10:08:15 lab dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Jul 17 10:08:15 lab dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.40 from
00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0
Jul 17 10:08:15 lab dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.40 to 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df
via eth0

Jul 17 10:08:29 lab dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Jul 17 10:08:29 lab dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.40 from
00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0
Jul 17 10:08:29 lab dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.40 to 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df
via eth0

Jul 17 10:08:37 lab dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Jul 17 10:08:37 lab dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.40 from
00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0
Jul 17 10:08:37 lab dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.40 to 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df
via eth0

Jul 17 10:08:47 lab dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Jul 17 10:08:47 lab dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.40 from
00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0
Jul 17 10:08:47 lab dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.40 to 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df
via eth0

Jul 17 10:09:04 lab dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Jul 17 10:09:04 lab dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.40 from
00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0
Jul 17 10:09:04 lab dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.40 to 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df
via eth0

Jul 17 10:09:25 lab dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Jul 17 10:09:25 lab dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.40 from
00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0
Jul 17 10:09:25 lab dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.40 to 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df
via eth0

Jul 17 10:09:41 lab dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Jul 17 10:09:41 lab dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.40 from
00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0
Jul 17 10:09:41 lab dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.40 to 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df
via eth0
Jul 17 10:09:57 lab dhclient: DHCPDISCOVER on eth1 to 255.255.255.255
port 67 interval 5

Jul 17 10:09:57 lab dhcpd: DHCPDISCOVER from 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0
Jul 17 10:09:57 lab dhcpd: DHCPOFFER on 192.168.1.40 to
00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0

Jul 17 10:09:57 lab dhclient: DHCPOFFER from 192.168.1.28
Jul 17 10:09:57 lab dhclient: DHCPREQUEST on eth1 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
Jul 17 10:09:57 lab dhcpd: DHCPREQUEST for 192.168.1.40 (192.168.1.28)
from 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df via eth0
Jul 17 10:09:57 lab dhcpd: DHCPACK on 192.168.1.40 to 00:e0:4d:7b:82:df
via eth0

Jul 17 10:09:57 lab dhclient: DHCPACK from 192.168.1.28
Jul 17 10:09:57 lab dhclient: bound to 192.168.1.40 -- renewal in 707
seconds.


I'm assuming this is a bug in the sky2 module, but don't know enough
about things in this area to do more than assume.

BTW, I have a problem with Biostar A770 A2+ and an onboard RealTek
8111/8168B chipset and same kernel only this is a desktop Sid install.
It's even odder. If I leave the NIC (once again 2 nics in the system)
in the 'up" state for more than 10 or 15 minutes I lose the ability to
access the internet with Firefox. I can access any site on my local
http server, ping out on the internet, resolve dns requests, use ftp,
ssh, etc... but Firefox hangs "connecting to" whatever Internet web site
I'm trying to reach. As soon as I ifdown the ethx connection my
internet connectivity in Firefox comes back. The Firefox http internet
connection will be made and work as soon as the offending NIC is taken
offline.

Once again, if I restart networking things will work fine for 10 to 15
minutes and then the ability to reach any internet web site is gone.
If I leave the onboard NIC disabled, no problems whatsover.



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Marvell 88E80856 switching from static to dhcp configuration all on its own
 

Andrew Sackville-West wrote:

On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 11:14:25AM -0700, Freddy Freeloader wrote:


Hi All,

I'm having a strange problem with a Marvell 88E8056 - 10/100/1000
Controller on a Biostar TA 770 A2+ motherboard. This is an Etch AMD64
install, but I have added the 2.6.25-amd64 kernel as I could not get the
Marvell controller to work at all with the 2.6.18 kernel.



...


I have two NICs. The onboard Marvell and a 3Com 3c905b. The 3Com
handles dhcp and dns requests. Both are configured for statically
configured IP addresses in /etc/network/interfaces. However, the
Marvell will, after some unknown amount of time--less than 12
hours--drop its static IP address and request a dhcp address from the
3Com adapter.



...

I'm assuming this is a bug in the sky2 module, but don't know enough
about things in this area to do more than assume.



I bet it's not a driver problem but simply that you have inadvertently
started a dhclient. It picks up a lease from somewhere, but then you
restart networking which reverts the interface to a static
address. Then when the dhclient thinks the lease has expired, it goes
and gets another one.


I've seen this happen on my laptop when I've been monkeying around
with getting a connection at a new location. I'll forget that I
manually started dhclient and then some time later... maybe days, I'll
connect somewhere where I get static ip (like home) and then all of
the sudden the dhclient will wake up and go looking for a new
address...

probably a killall dhclient will sort it out.


A



I wondered about it, but it didn't make sense in that the networking
system is completely ignoring its own configuration. Plus, this
behavior has survived several reboots of the system. However, I will
give that a try and see if the behavior changes.



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Marvell 88E80856 switching from static to dhcp configuration all on its own
 

Andrew Sackville-West wrote:

On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 01:36:43PM -0700, Freddy Freeloader wrote:


Andrew Sackville-West wrote:


On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 11:14:25AM -0700, Freddy Freeloader wrote:



Hi All,

I'm having a strange problem with a Marvell 88E8056 - 10/100/1000
Controller on a Biostar TA 770 A2+ motherboard. This is an Etch
AMD64 install, but I have added the 2.6.25-amd64 kernel as I could
not get the Marvell controller to work at all with the 2.6.18
kernel.


...



I have two NICs. The onboard Marvell and a 3Com 3c905b. The 3Com
handles dhcp and dns requests. Both are configured for statically
configured IP addresses in /etc/network/interfaces. However, the
Marvell will, after some unknown amount of time--less than 12
hours--drop its static IP address and request a dhcp address from the
3Com adapter.



...


I'm assuming this is a bug in the sky2 module, but don't know enough
about things in this area to do more than assume.


I bet it's not a driver problem but simply that you have inadvertently
started a dhclient. It picks up a lease from somewhere, but then you
restart networking which reverts the interface to a static
address. Then when the dhclient thinks the lease has expired, it goes
and gets another one.


I've seen this happen on my laptop when I've been monkeying around
with getting a connection at a new location. I'll forget that I
manually started dhclient and then some time later... maybe days, I'll
connect somewhere where I get static ip (like home) and then all of
the sudden the dhclient will wake up and go looking for a new
address...

probably a killall dhclient will sort it out.


I wondered about it, but it didn't make sense in that the networking
system is completely ignoring its own configuration. Plus, this
behavior has survived several reboots of the system. However, I will
give that a try and see if the behavior changes.



do you have network-mangler^Wmanager installed?


perhaps some other package is starting dhclient? Basically, if you
have both interfaces using static ip, dhclient shouldn't even be
started. care to post /etc/network/interfaces?



A

For some reason dhclient WAS running, but I don't know why. Especially
on that interface as it was not chosen as the default interface during
install, and that's the only interface I've had configured to use dhcp
at any time. As I said, both interfaces specify "static" in
/etc/network/interfaces. It's working now as it's had long enough to
repeat its behavior based on the time frame of how long things took to
happen last time so I'm assuming it's fixed.

And, if dhclient was getting a new IP address for that interface, why
not for the other NIC too? What makes the Marvell interface the
interface that keeps getting reconfigured and the 3Com interface stay
stable? I've never seen this kind of thing happen before and I've
switched interfaces between static and dhcp many times. I've never had
to manually kill dhclient before to keep it from reconfiguring a
working, manually configured, interface. To me that says there is
possibly something wrong with the driver for the NIC itself and it's
crashing and losing its state or something. Nothing shows up in syslog
or kern.log, but I still wonder about it.

And, no, network-mangler isn't running or installed. It's one of the
first things I get rid of in a desktop install. IIRC, n-m only comes
with a gui, and I have no gui installed. Plus, it doesn't show up using
dpkg -l | grep network so I know it's not there This is just a base
install with the server packages I need to run for use in my lab.
Nothing else.

You wouldn't happen to have any guesses on the second problem I listed
would you? :)



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Marvell 88E80856 switching from static to dhcp configuration all on its own
 

The Friday 18 July 2008 00:24:04 Andrew Sackville-West, you wrote*:
> On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 02:30:42PM -0700, Freddy Freeloader wrote:
> > Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
> >> On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 01:36:43PM -0700, Freddy Freeloader wrote:
> >>> Andrew Sackville-West wrote:
> >>>> On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 11:14:25AM -0700, Freddy Freeloader wrote:
>
> [...]
>
> >>>>> I have two NICs. The onboard Marvell and a 3Com 3c905b. The
> >>>>> 3Com handles dhcp and dns requests. Both are configured for
> >>>>> statically configured IP addresses in /etc/network/interfaces.
> >>>>> However, the Marvell will, after some unknown amount of
> >>>>> time--less than 12 hours--drop its static IP address and
> >>>>> request a dhcp address from the 3Com adapter.
>
> [...]
>
> >>>> probably a killall dhclient will sort it out.
>
> [...]
>
> >>> [i] will give that a try and see if the behavior changes.
>
> [...]
>
> >> perhaps some other package is starting dhclient? Basically, if you
> >> have both interfaces using static ip, dhclient shouldn't even be
> >> started. care to post /etc/network/interfaces?
>
> [...]
>
> > For some reason dhclient WAS running, but I don't know why.
>
> if it reappears, try a `ps aux`, maybe there will be a clue there as
> to where it's coming from. And after a reboot, run
>
> watch grep dhclient /var/log/syslog
>
> or some equivalent and watch for it to show up.
>
> > You wouldn't happen to have any guesses on the second problem I listed
> > would you? :)
>
> nope, sorry.
>
> A


You could also look with a pstree or recompile dhclient with a getppid at the
beginning in order to see which process launch dhclient.
--
Thomas Preud'homme

Why debian : http://www.debian.org/intro/why_debian


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Marvell 88E80856 switching from static to dhcp configuration all on its own
 

Thomas Preud'homme wrote:

The Friday 18 July 2008 00:24:04 Andrew Sackville-West, you wrote :


On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 02:30:42PM -0700, Freddy Freeloader wrote:


Andrew Sackville-West wrote:


On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 01:36:43PM -0700, Freddy Freeloader wrote:


Andrew Sackville-West wrote:


On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 11:14:25AM -0700, Freddy Freeloader wrote:


[...]



I have two NICs. The onboard Marvell and a 3Com 3c905b. The
3Com handles dhcp and dns requests. Both are configured for
statically configured IP addresses in /etc/network/interfaces.
However, the Marvell will, after some unknown amount of
time--less than 12 hours--drop its static IP address and
request a dhcp address from the 3Com adapter.


[...]



probably a killall dhclient will sort it out.


[...]



[i] will give that a try and see if the behavior changes.


[...]



perhaps some other package is starting dhclient? Basically, if you
have both interfaces using static ip, dhclient shouldn't even be
started. care to post /etc/network/interfaces?


[...]



For some reason dhclient WAS running, but I don't know why.


if it reappears, try a `ps aux`, maybe there will be a clue there as
to where it's coming from. And after a reboot, run

watch grep dhclient /var/log/syslog

or some equivalent and watch for it to show up.



You wouldn't happen to have any guesses on the second problem I listed
would you? :)


nope, sorry.

A




You could also look with a pstree or recompile dhclient with a getppid at the
beginning in order to see which process launch dhclient.



I'll try pstree. I hadn't thought of that.

These troubleshooting suggestions really don't help explain to me why
dhclient would override the settings in /etc/network/interfaces for one
NIC and not the other though. And why would it override manual
settings? Isn't there some process watching the settings in
/etc/network/interfaces to stop just such a thing from happening, or
doesn't the driver and device itself record its state so that dhclient
wouldn't even attempt this unless there is some type of user override,
i.e. ifdown/ifup, /etc/init.d/networking restart, etc... ?

There's something going on that I really don't understand here, and just
troubleshooting it at the level shown here doesn't seem to me that it
will answer my base questions. Can anyone point me to documentation on
how this works, because I must be missing something.

Why wouldn't restarting networking not have killed dhclient after
/etc/network/interfaces was read, the NIC's configured, and all NIC's
were configured with a static IP address?

Also, I still think there is a driver issue with this as eth1 sent out
dhcp requests probably a dozen times (cycles of 6 dhcprequests),
received no answers, and then was answered with multiple offers before
it finally accepted one of those offers and bound to that address? It
seems to me if there were no driver issues involved eth1 would have
gotten its dhcp address on the first attempt if this was all related to
JUST dhclient.

One of the problems with this module in the 2.6.24 kernel was the
interface would come up, accept an IP address from
/etc/network/interfaces, but it couldn't send or receive anything. This
seems to be an extension of that problem.



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