Getting Started, Documentation, Tips & Tricks

Hi all,

I've Just managed to acquire an O2 as a companion to my Octane.
However, as the title says, I'm having trouble getting any network activity at all.

She's running a clean install of 6.3, with no patches (yet) and I've tried several different switches, cables, and a couple of PROM settings to no avail.

ifconfig ec0 simply tells me that the connection is up, with the static settings that were entered into the Network Manager.
netstat -r looks right too, but I'm not managing to get anything out.

I'm not managing to get a link light at all on ANY switch, is there a PROM setting that will disable ec0 entirely?

hinv dump to follow when I'm back at work tomorrow....

To update...
No hinv dump as I didn't have time to get a serial console up to copy and paste it. However I'll take a picture tomorrow for your convenience.

Interestingly enough, the only mention I've seen of a problem is when I booted the installer on my CD saying that there was no carrier detected on ec0, and that's it!
netstat -in shows a load of packets leaving but none inbound, and I don't see anything in the syslog when I tail it after setting ifconfig ec0 -debug.

I get the feeling I'm going to be stuck using a SLIP connection to get it online, I can't find any resources that talk about disabling the controller entirely.
In the case that I can't get anything working, does anyone know of a way I can burn a copy of the IRIX 6.5 disks I made a backup of using Linux? I suspect that I'm going have a problem with the EFS filesystem and trying to burn it to disk.

Thanks again!

hi estuans! btw congrats on your Octane and O2

hmm not sure if this helps but could we try check the output on this command in IRIX
thats for 6.3, after that please do a to disbale debug mode.

did you try ping your O2 from another machine? but you mentioned no lights on your switch hmm lets hope its not a hardware issue.. anyway its too early to say, lets just wait for your more inputs, then people can help you here anytime

Hi Geo,

The output I get when tailing the Syslog simply says "ec0 is in Hardware Debug Mode" with no further output.
I ran tail with "-f" parameter so I could follow whilst trying different cables and switches but to no avail I'm afraid.

grepping the log for all mention of ec0 only tells me that no carrier was detected the first time IRIX booted in network mode after a clean install.

I should also mention that I ran the "System Diagnostics" suite from the PROM menu, which I believe completed without error ( I was asked to press "Return" when the test got to the ethernet controller with no other output, is this normal?), and running the Ethernet Controller Test and the Ethernet Controller Stress Test from the prompt also returned no output.

Unless anyone has any better ideas, I guess I've got a dead network controller

I managed to get a hinv dump over serial, for the curious:
-----
Video: MVP unit 0 version 1.3
with no AV Card or Camera.
FLASH PROM version 4.13
On-board serial ports: 2
On-board EPP/ECP parallel port
1 200 MHZ IP32 Processor
FPU: MIPS R5000 Floating Point Coprocessor Revision: 1.0
CPU: MIPS R5000 Processor Chip Revision: 2.1
Data cache size: 32 Kbytes
Instruction cache size: 32 Kbytes
Secondary unified instruction/data cache size: 1 Mbyte on Processor 0
Main memory size: 256 Mbytes
Iris Audio Processor: version A3 revision 0
Integral Ethernet: ec0, version 1
CDROM: unit 4 on SCSI controller 0
Disk drive: unit 1 on SCSI controller 0
CRM graphics installed
Integral SCSI controller 1: Version ADAPTEC 7880
Integral SCSI controller 0: Version ADAPTEC 7880
Vice: TRE
----

Has anyone experienced similar issues before me?
I'm open to buying a working (or dead) O2 off of someone if they're willing, I've fallen in love with the blue toaster and I can't see myself living with a SLIP connection forever!

Morning estuans! hmm ok, and after you check this did you try disable the debug mode? maybe all the time it was in the debug mode? hmm oh maybe your chkconfig can help too? also yoy printenv at prom? sorry to ask more hehe just want to check details hmmm my O2 laptop is 6.3 but yeah at first it was bloody when i try to connect it to our net.. i still have many plans to resolve yours but lets just wait from your input oh! also nice idea, but we need to assume your O2 is using VGA display, let it boot gentoo linux using their liveCD after that you can also debug it under there just to make sure if its indeed hardware issue. so still many gameplans hehe dont worry, this obstacles are the freebies when we get this great machine

Hi geo,

I tried taking the system in and out of debug but without further success, I'll do a printenv tomorrow morning UK time, you might still be up when I do so!
I did do a resetenv to see if that'd clear anything, but nothing new there.

I'll burn a gentoo disk and a BSD disk and try booting them up, see if I can get any more useful information from there and post it up.

On a physical note, I can't see any scoring or bad solder joints on the mainboard tracing back from the RJ45 jack backwards.

Thanks again for your help.

hi est!

oh! hmmm ok2 so lets wait for your printenv then, but you mentioned you did a resetenv? i think theres nothing wrong then, but lets just make sure also can you provide the chkconfig? maybe theres a daemon not running?

ok! that would be a nice way to zero-down the probabilty, so if ever you can use the net on gentoo or BSD, then we can say the hardware is fine and the culprit is irix6.3 network config.

ok thats good to know hehe its always better to have the problem in software then in hardware

i have a strong feeling its just network configuration, did you set the necessary network files?

Does your O2 has its PCI tray correctly installed? If it is missing or not properly connected, the system will not be able to read its Ethernet address. ifconfig should be able to print the Ethernet address, which should start with 08:00:69 on the O2.

Just quick update gents before I head to the pub:

I don't get the MAC address printed out from ifconfig on IRIX,
The gentoo live CD gives me a panic just after leaving the PROM about files not found on the CD
The BSD cd boots up OK, I can the MAC-110 identifying itself as part of the BSD boot, my MAC address is apparently 08:00:69:0c:c5:bd, still no link however

Ta for now!

You said you're "not managing to get a link light at all on ANY switch" - so you've tried both known-good ports, and known-good cables? Worth taking an extra moment just to cross that off the list permanently.

I see that OpenBSD managed to read the MAC address, but still might be worth re-seating the PCI tray per Miod's suggestion.

I wonder if you might be having an auto-negotiation failure between the O2 and the switch(es). I don't have IRIX handy and am too lazy to check specific flags on TechPubs, but the equivalent of "ifconfig ec0 media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex" might be instructive - add an address, etc. That syntax might work as-is on OpenBSD, if you want to try that first.

Good luck!

Hi all,

Thanks for the suggestions so far, I'll run through what I've tried:

- Reseating the PCI carrier.
- 3 different known good switches, and 3 different good cables, tested with different systems including my Octane.
- Using OpenBSD;- The installer can't get a link on the mace0 controller.
- ifconfig ec0 debug then tailing the syslog.
- setting ec0mode in the PROM to various settings as suggested on techpubs.
- using resetenv to cleans the PROM.
- chkconfig auto_ipaddress on / off.
- chkconfig network on / off - This has the most effect, the system takes at least 5 minutes to boot with networking turned on!
- Clean install of IRIX.

Has anyone got any new ideas?
I'm working on securing a PCI card as a workaround because I don't want to put the toaster to pasture.

hehe how about the obvious that the network stuff is just broken?
is the pci slot in use? if not you could try a different card. 3com based gbit cards used to work fine. somewhere on site here we have info about the working chipsets ...

I don't think the tg or eg drivers even exist for IP32, and the O2 hardware aggregator explicitly states that "the SGI OEM'd "tg" and "eg" gigabit cards will *not* work in the O2". I haven't found any information if generic TI Thunderlan cards work.