On Sun Fire 3800/4800/4810/6800, Sun Fire V1280, and Netra 1280, IP Packets With Type of Service (TOS) Bits May Hang the System Controller

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Impact

On Sun Fire 3800/4800/4810/6800, Sun Fire V1280, and Netra 1280 systems, a single IP(7P) packet with Type of Service (TOS) bits set may hang the System Controller (SC).

Contributing Factors

This issue can occur in the following releases:

SPARC Platform

• Sun Fire V1280 and Netra 1280 without firmware revision 5.13.00xx through 5.13.0015 (as delivered with patch 113751-05)
• Sun Fire 3800/4800/4810/6800 without firmware revision 5.14.5 (as delivered with patch 112883-06)
• Sun Fire 3800/4800/4810/6800 without firmware revision 5.15.0 (as delivered with patch 112884-01)
• Sun Fire 3800/4800/4810/6800 with firmware revision 5.11.x
• Sun Fire 3800/4800/4810/6800 with firmware revision 5.12.x
• Sun Fire 3800/4800/4810/6800 with firmware revision 5.13.x

To determine the firmware version of the SCApp, use the "showsc" command from the platform shell as follows :

    SC> showsc
    SC: SSC0
    Main System Controller
    SC Failover: enabled and active.
    Clock failover enabled.
    SC date: Thu Oct 2 10:32:32 EST 2003
    SC uptime: 2 hours 26 minutes 15 seconds
    ScApp version: 5.15.3
    RTOS version: 26

Symptoms

Should the described issue occur, either one of the SCs will hang. Messages similar to the following will be seen on the SC console port:

    Exception: Data Access Exception
    program counter:            0x000xxxxx
    next program counter:       0x000xxxxx
    processor status register:  0x04001fc3
    Task: 0xxxxxx00 "tNetTask"

The message:

    interrupt: panic: netJobAdd: ring buffer overflow!

will begin to appear shortly after the exception is generated, and will be repeated for each packet received by the SC until it is manually reset.

Workaround

To work around the described issue, ensure the packets with IP TOS bits set are not present on the ethernet segment that attaches to the SC (often controlled by the configuration of any upstream ethernet switches or IP routers). Moving devices which generate such packets off the subnet on which the SC resides should prevent this issue as well.

Note: To recover, a hardware reset is necessary on the hung controllers.

Resolution

This issue is addressed in the following releases:

SPARC Platform

• Sun Fire V1280 and Netra 1280 with firmware revision 5.13.00xx through 5.13.0015 (as delivered with patch 113751-05 or later)
• Sun Fire 3800/4800/4810/6800 with firmware revision 5.14.5 (as delivered with patch 112883-06 or later)
• Sun Fire 3800/4800/4810/6800 with firmware revision 5.15.0 (as delivered with patch 112884-01 or later)

Note: On Sun Fire 3800/4800/4810/6800 systems, firmware versions 5.11.x, 5.12.x and 5.13.x require an upgrade.

Modification History




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