These release notes support Version 4.6.3 of the ptx®/LAN software intended for use with IBM® Symmetry® and NUMA-Q systems. ptx/LAN consists of hardware and software that can interconnect a variety of data-communication devices to create a local area network (LAN).
Read this document before you install or run this release of ptx/LAN.
This version of ptx/LAN can be used with the following products:
To determine which versions of layered-software products (such as ptx/TCP/IP and ptx/NFS®), will run with this release of ptx/LAN, refer to the specific product's release notes.
The 64-Bit 10/100 Ethernet PCI board is not supported in Quads. Quads are first generation NUMA-Q hardware. The /etc/showcfg command displays a processor speed of 180Mhz for Quads.
The 64-Bit 10/100 Ethernet PCI board is supported in Squads. Squads are the current NUMA-Q hardware and have processor speeds greater than 180Mhz.
The 64-bit Ethernet card (identified as AIC 6915 by the ethstat -i command) implements the hardware speed and duplex mode negotiation protocol as specified in the IEEE 802.3u standard. It will correctly select the speed and duplex mode, as specified by the standard, with other switches and devices which also implement this protocol. When connecting to legacy devices that do not implement this protocol (such as the 32-bit Ethernet device identified as RNS 21140A by the ethstat -i command), the speed and duplex mode of the device must be specified manually. Make sure that these settings are the same for the devices at both ends of the cable.
For the 64-bit Ethernet device, the -duplex switch of the /usr/etc/ethadmin command does nothing when the -speed switch is set to auto. If -speed is set to either 10 or 100, then -duplex can be set to full or half. When -speed is set to auto, the device uses the 802.3u protocol to determine speed and duplex mode. When -speed is not set to auto, the speed and duplex mode is forced to the values specified by the /usr/etc/ethadmin command. This is similar in behavior to the Cisco 5500 switch (though the administrative commands are very different).
The /usr/etc/ethadmin command continues to operate as it did before with the 32-bit Ethernet devices.
When connecting a 64-bit Ethernet device to a network, the default speed of auto will normally select the proper speed and duplex mode. However if the device is being used as a CCI link connected to a 32-bit Ethernet device, then the -speed and -duplex modes must be the same for each end of the CCI link. The devices can be manually configured after each boot or changed at run time via the /usr/etc/ethadmin command, or the menu system can be used to set the boot time parameters of the Ethernet Management menu to persist over system boots.
For information on how to install this release of ptx/LAN, refer to the DYNIX/ptx and Layered Products Software Installation Release Notes.
The following documentation is available on the HTML documentation CD:
This section lists the following problem report summaries:
The numbers in parentheses identify the problems in the problem-tracking system.
The following problems have been fixed in this release of ptx/LAN:
(251103) An improvement was made to LAN "hotstandby" for the PCI FDDI board, where the "hotstandby" trigger can be based on the adapter becoming isolated for some seconds. The improvement provides a failover technique that occurs outside the duration of normal FFDI ring recovery processes.
(251208) The Adaptec 64-bit Ethernet controller was liable to hang if it was transmitting when a link was lost on the network.
(251255) A deadlock in the RNS FDDI driver was liable to occur when the board was being reset while a NIF frame was being received.
(251686) The SysKonnect Gigabit Ethernet board did not reliably connect with a Cisco switch.
(251951) The tradmin -non option did not work correctly.
(252578) CCI intefaces on clusters were liable to become out of synchronization with ptx/LAN if a pe device was reset in the middle of a flow-block condition.
(253010) Some FDDI cards were unable to initialize because they failed with the error: POST ERROR test 0x33 error 0x4b.
(253985) The SysKonnect Gigabit Ethernet adapter did not fail over with lanstandby.
(254682) A negative value for pe_output_npending caused a panic in the pe driver.
(254849) A panic occurred during a ping operation of a ptx/TCP/IP interface that was configured over a token ring for "noarp."
The following problem has been reported against this release of ptx/LAN:
The RNS board can be determined by the following command:
# ethstat -i /dev/net/pe6 RNS 21140Aae Quad 0 Slot 1 /dev/net/pe7 RNS 21140Aae Quad 0 Slot 1 /dev/net/pe8 RNS 21140Aae Quad 0 Slot 1 /dev/net/pe9 RNS 21140Aae Quad 0 Slot 1
Workaround. Select the correct speed using either the ethadmin command or the ptx/ADMIN menu system:
/usr/etc/ethadmin -speed [10|100] /dev/net/device
Network Administration => LAN Management => Ethernet Management => Manage Station
To permanently select the speed, even if the system reboots, use the Set Boot Time Parameters menu instead of the Manage Station menu.