Problem with NICs flapping at intervals of 5 mins

[stephenw10]

Hmm, feels like a link negotiation issue. Does it do it for all 3 ports in the lagg?

Can you set both sides to a fixed speed?

[johnpoz]

@stephenw10 seems it only happens on two of the 3..

"I'm currently running a 3 port LAGG on pfSense and I've only gotten events on two ports at a time:"

but not sure if does happen on all 3 but never at the same time, A and B, say one time and then B and C next time?

For testing I would take the lagg out of the equation - while this could cause a brief outage.. seems it should only be a few seconds.. And if doesn't happen then you know for sure its something related to the lagg.

[whosmatt]

@johnpoz said in Problem with NICs flapping at intervals of 5 mins:

if you take the laggs out of the equation - do these interfaces still go up down?

I have taken port 7 on the switch and ixl1 on pfSense out of the lagg but have left them physically connected to see what happens.

[whosmatt]

@johnpoz said in Problem with NICs flapping at intervals of 5 mins:

but not sure if does happen on all 3 but never at the same time, A and B, say one time and then B and C next time?

That's correct. The logs in my original post show at least one event for each of the three ports in the lagg. It rarely happens on two at a time, and never (so far) on all three at the same time.

Oh, and sometimes it will go a day or two without happening at all! Fun one to troubleshoot.

[whosmatt]

@whosmatt said in Problem with NICs flapping at intervals of 5 mins:

@johnpoz said in Problem with NICs flapping at intervals of 5 mins:

if you take the laggs out of the equation - do these interfaces still go up down?

I have taken port 7 on the switch and ixl1 on pfSense out of the lagg but have left them physically connected to see what happens.

It has already happened outside of the lagg:

From switch:

2024 Oct 14 17:30:09 TEG-7124WS CFA Slot0/7 Link Status [UP]
2024 Oct 14 17:30:04 TEG-7124WS CFA Slot0/7 Link Status [DOWN]

From pfSense:

2024-10-14 17:30:09.000	kernel:
kernel: ixl1: link state changed to UP
2024-10-14 17:30:09.000	kernel:
kernel: ixl1: Link is up, 10 Gbps Full Duplex, Requested FEC: None, Negotiated FEC: CL74 FC-FEC/BASE-R, Autoneg: True, Flow Control: None
2024-10-14 17:30:09.000	check_reload_status[430]:
check_reload_status[430]: Linkup starting ixl1
2024-10-14 17:30:05.000	kernel:
kernel: ixl1: link state changed to DOWN
2024-10-14 17:30:05.000	check_reload_status[430]:
check_reload_status[430]: Linkup starting ixl1

Guess I'll force speed and duplex on both sides and see what happens.

[whosmatt]

@stephenw10 said in Problem with NICs flapping at intervals of 5 mins:

Can you set both sides to a fixed speed?

Curious how to do this on the pfSense side with interfaces that are part of a lagg, or whether it's possible.

[stephenw10]

Yeah, not easily since you can't assign the member interfaces separately. You can add shell cmds to set them at boot.

But you can test it with the NIC you removed from the lagg first.

[whosmatt]

@stephenw10 said in Problem with NICs flapping at intervals of 5 mins:

But you can test it with the NIC you removed from the lagg first.

Yep, that's what I'm doing currently. Thanks!

[whosmatt]

Well, I was about to post that it happened again with forced speed and duplex but then I saw this in the pfSense log:

kernel: ixl1: Link is up, 10 Gbps Full Duplex, Requested FEC: None, Negotiated FEC: CL74 FC-FEC/BASE-R, Autoneg: True, Flow Control: None

Which is odd because I definitely set 10G full. But then I realized I didn't enable the interface I assigned to ixl1. So I enabled the interface and will wait and see what happens.

Edit:

Actually it appears that the settings aren't correctly applying at least when I view the output of ifconfig. And I set up a second unassigned NIC and forced its speed and duplex in the UI just to see the difference:

[2.7.2-RELEASE][root@pfsense]/root: ifconfig ixl1
ixl1: flags=1008843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,LOWER_UP> metric 0 mtu 1500
        description: OPT10
        options=48100b8<VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,VLAN_HWFILTER,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
        ether b4:96:91:b6:27:b5
        inet6 fe80::b696:91ff:feb6:27b5%ixl1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2
        media: Ethernet autoselect (10Gbase-T <full-duplex>)
        status: active
        nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
[2.7.2-RELEASE][root@pfsense]/root: ifconfig bge1
bge1: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        description: OPT12
        options=80098<VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,LINKSTATE>
        ether 00:0a:f7:8f:51:89
        inet6 fe80::20a:f7ff:fe8f:5189%bge1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x7
        media: Ethernet 1000baseT <full-duplex> (none)
        status: no carrier
        nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>

The media for ixl1 still shows 'autoselect' even when set to 10G full in the UI.

[johnpoz]

@whosmatt Can you even set manual 10ge, thought part of the spec was auto? You can set the speed down manual.. I have to call up the spec.. And we really don't run much copper 10ge at work.. I believe we do have some.. I will have to tool around tmrw and see..

Might be able to set it 5 or 2.5, etc.

[whosmatt]

@johnpoz said in Problem with NICs flapping at intervals of 5 mins:

Can you even set manual 10ge

It's an option in the UI, yes. It's also an option on the switch side.

@johnpoz said in Problem with NICs flapping at intervals of 5 mins:

And we really don't run much copper 10ge at work

I'm beginning to understand why.

[whosmatt]

@johnpoz said in Problem with NICs flapping at intervals of 5 mins:

Might be able to set it 5 or 2.5, etc.

I tried setting 5000Base-T and ifconfig still shows "media: Ethernet autoselect (10Gbase-T <full-duplex>)"

If I go through the various settings on the switch the NIC follows along, down as far as 1Gbps. There's also a 100M Full setting on the switch but the NIC won't link at that speed.

[stephenw10]

The options offered in the gui are what ifconfig -m returns. For example:

[admin@7100.stevew.lan]/root: ifconfig -vvm ixl0
ixl0: flags=1008843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,LOWER_UP> metric 0 mtu 1500
	options=48100b8<VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,VLAN_HWFILTER,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
	capabilities=4f507bb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,TSO6,LRO,VLAN_HWFILTER,VLAN_HWTSO,NETMAP,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
	ether 00:e0:ed:86:a6:8c
	inet6 fe80::208:a2ff:fe0e:a591%ixl0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
	media: Ethernet autoselect (10GBase-AOC <full-duplex>)
	status: active
	supported media:
		media autoselect
	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
	drivername: ixl0
	plugged: SFP/SFP+/SFP28 1X Copper Active (Copper pigtail)
	vendor: BROCADE PN: 58-1000026-01 SN: CAX116410001093 DATE: 2016-10-07

DACs like that usually don't offer more than one speed.

[johnpoz]

@stephenw10 so yeah that doesn't show any options.. My igb0 on the other hand does

        media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
        status: active
        supported media:
                media autoselect
                media 1000baseT
                media 1000baseT mediaopt full-duplex
                media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex
                media 100baseTX
                media 10baseT/UTP mediaopt full-duplex
                media 10baseT/UTP

[whosmatt]

Yeah I can see the list of supported speed / duplex, it's just that setting any of them in the UI doesn't seem to change the media from autoselect:

ixl1: flags=1008843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,LOWER_UP> metric 0 mtu 1500
        description: OPT10
        options=48100b8<VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,VLAN_HWFILTER,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
        capabilities=4f507bb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,TSO6,LRO,VLAN_HWFILTER,VLAN_HWTSO,NETMAP,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
        ether b4:96:91:b6:27:b5
        inet6 fe80::b696:91ff:feb6:27b5%ixl1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2
        media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
        status: active
        supported media:
                media autoselect
                media 10Gbase-T
                media 5000Base-T
                media 2500Base-T
                media 1000baseT
                media 100baseTX
        nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>

I've got it running at 1000Mbps right now because the port is forced to that speed on the switch. Incidentally, it hasn't gone down since I set that about 12 hours ago or so.

[stephenw10]

Hmm, I wonder it's misreporting 'autoselect' there. If the switch side is set to 1G fixed the NIC should not be able to negotiate with it.

I guess we'll see if it makes any difference anyway.

[whosmatt]

@stephenw10 said in Problem with NICs flapping at intervals of 5 mins:

Hmm, I wonder it's misreporting 'autoselect' there. If the switch side is set to 1G fixed the NIC should not be able to negotiate with it.

I guess we'll see if it makes any difference anyway.

I'm wondering if the setting on the switch side is really forcing speed/duplex or just forcing it to auto negotiate to a predetermined speed. If that makes sense. In other words it's still autoselect, but the list of possible values has been narrowed.

[stephenw10]

Yes, that could certainly be the case.

You can set that in pfSense using sysctl:

[admin@7100.stevew.lan]/root: sysctl -d dev.ixl.0.advertise_speed
dev.ixl.0.advertise_speed: 
Control advertised link speed.
Flags:
	 0x1 - advertise 100M
	 0x2 - advertise 1G
	 0x4 - advertise 10G
	 0x8 - advertise 20G
	0x10 - advertise 25G
	0x20 - advertise 40G
	0x40 - advertise 2.5G
	0x80 - advertise 5G

Set to 0 to disable link.
Use "sysctl -x" to view flags properly.

But if it is still negotiating and doesn't lose link at 1G that might also be a clue.

[whosmatt]

@stephenw10 said in Problem with NICs flapping at intervals of 5 mins:

Hmm, I wonder it's misreporting 'autoselect' there. If the switch side is set to 1G fixed the NIC should not be able to negotiate with it.

I guess we'll see if it makes any difference anyway.

When in doubt, look at the logs I guess. I should have looked sooner:

2024-10-15 15:29:09.000	kernel:
kernel: ixl1: Media change is not supported.
2024-10-15 15:29:09.000	php-fpm[28896]:
php-fpm[28896]: /interfaces.php: The command '/sbin/ifconfig 'ixl1' media '10Gbase-T'' returned exit code '1', the output was 'ifconfig: SIOCSIFMEDIA (media): Operation not supported by device'

[johnpoz]

@whosmatt said in Problem with NICs flapping at intervals of 5 mins:

but the list of possible values has been narrowed.

Yeah that very well could be - since gig came out, the preferred setting has been auto neg.. If you want a slower speed you should really just limit what is offered, etc.

While forcing with gig is an option, the best practice is this is only for temp troubleshooting to figure out why auto isn't working.. Been a really long time I have looked at the actual spec for 10ge, but I recall reading that there would be no option for hard set, had to be auto..

Makers don't always follow the spec ;) heheh but if your running fine on gig - but having issues with 10ge over copper - how long are the runs? Any way you could switch to fiber?

I would have to do some looking around on work network.. Only been at this gig going on a year and some of these locations were inherited when a company was bought, etc. We still have some old HPs that working on getting rid of, etc. But I believe the only copper 10ge we have is from the server in the rack to the TOR switch in that same rack. And the only reason those are copper is the server came with the 10ge copper connections or something.. We sure do not run any switch to switch over copper that I am aware of. But there are a lot of sites ;) and I haven't even been on some of the switches or routers in those sites..