NIC in SCO UnixWare 7.1.1 1

[tomw]

Anyone have any ideas on installing a 3Com 3C905 series NIC in an SCO UnixWare 7.1.1 server?&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>We have d/l'd and installed the driver package nd_711.pkg from SCO and the netcfg utility readily identifies the 3Com card, and installs fine.&nbsp;&nbsp;All i'm using is TCP/IP with regard to protocols.&nbsp;&nbsp;I started with a 3C905-TX, then tried a 3C905B-TX-MBA that I know was working in another box, and then we tried a brand-new 3C905B-TX-N.&nbsp;&nbsp;They all worked the same.&nbsp;&nbsp;Also, we have tested the cable (with a tester as well as connecting another computer to that cable) and all is OK there.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>I don't get any LED's either.&nbsp;&nbsp;3Com Tech support claims that the 905 series doesn't light up any LEDS until the driver initializes the card.<br><br>I can ping 127.0.0.1, or localhost.&nbsp;&nbsp;I can also ping the sytem IP address, or system name.&nbsp;&nbsp;When I attempt to ping a remote machine, or ping the broadcast address...Nothing!!<br><br>Any thoughts or ideas would be very much appreciated.&nbsp;&nbsp;The SCO UnixWare is a very different animal from the Open Server systems we have.

 

[AndyBo]

OK, a bit of info before we march on with solving the problem...<br><br>Pinging the IP address of the machine you are pinging from does not touch the network.&nbsp;&nbsp;The same is true if you use the localhost (127.0.0.1) address.&nbsp;&nbsp;Pings to either of these addresses will not go out to the network via the network card.&nbsp;&nbsp;The TCP/IP stack intercepts it before it hits the NIC and sends a response.<br><br>The best way to test would be to ping the UnixWare box from a different server.&nbsp;&nbsp;I'm presuming you've done this, and it doesn't work...<br><br>When we installed a UnixWare 7 server about 7 or 8 months ago, we had all sorts of problems getting the network card going.&nbsp;&nbsp;I'll try and ask some questions that lead you through the problems we had <br><br>First thing to check is the TCP/IP setup on the card.&nbsp;&nbsp;What output do you get if you type <FONT FACE=monospace>ifconfig -a</font>?<br><br>Next, is the card an autosensing card?&nbsp;&nbsp;We use autosensing Intel Etherexpress cards and these clashed with our autosensing network switch.&nbsp;&nbsp;Setting the network switch to full duplex, 100Mb made the cards set themselves OK, without getting into an autosensing handshake war...<br><br>When you boot the server what settings are reported by the network card?&nbsp;&nbsp;These might help diagnose the problem.<br><br>The next thing to check is that you are up to date with the patches on the server.&nbsp;&nbsp;We had to install about 7 or 8 - there may be more now &nbsp;&nbsp;(Take a look at <A HREF="ftp://ftp.sco.com" TARGET="_new">ftp.sco.com</A> for patches.)<br><br>And finally, the real doozy that had us scratching out heads for a few days.&nbsp;&nbsp;The server we were installing was a replacement for an existing server running UnixWare 2.1.3.&nbsp;&nbsp;The UW7 box was built in parallel, and various system settings files copied across.&nbsp;&nbsp;One of these was <FONT FACE=monospace>/etc/inet/config</font>.<br><br>One of the lines in there sets up the routing and <i>should</i> look like the following:<br><FONT FACE=monospace><br>4c:/usr/sbin/route::y::add default 192.168.1.1:<br></font><br>The file we had copied across <i>actually</i> looked like the following:<br><FONT FACE=monospace><br>4c:/usr/sbin/route::y::add default 192.168.1.1 1:<br></font><br>Not the extra &quot;1&quot; at the end.&nbsp;&nbsp;In UW2.1.3, this was used for the routing &quot;metric&quot; value.&nbsp;&nbsp;In UW7, it applies a netmask...&nbsp;&nbsp;The effect?&nbsp;&nbsp;We could only connect to servers with even IP addresses...&nbsp;&nbsp;How confusing was that? <br><br>Anyway, hope this gives you some clues. <p> <br><a href=mailto: > </a><br><a href= > </a><br>--<br>
0 1 - Just my two bits

 

[tomw]

Thanks for replying AndyBo...<br><br>Your right, pinging localhost only tests the TCP/IP stack.&nbsp;&nbsp;That's what I was implying exactly.&nbsp;&nbsp;I did try pinging into the UnixWare box from other machines (Win 9x & SCO Open Svr)<br>but had no luck.&nbsp;&nbsp;The problem seems to be that the driver is not initializing the card.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>The OS is UnixWare 7.1.1.&nbsp;&nbsp;The NIC is a 3C905 Series.&nbsp;&nbsp;The SCO Tech Article 110131 describes the process to trouble shoot an NIC and I have followed it to the letter.&nbsp;&nbsp;The examples in that article use the same NIC (a 3Com 905) and my outputs are identical with the exception of the IRQ (there's is 10, and mine is 11).&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>Thus, the output of ifconfig -a is correct.&nbsp;&nbsp;As is the output from netcfg, resmgr, dcu, nics pkginfo (we did try re-installing the nics package), var/sadm/install/contents, <br>/etc/conf/cf.d/sdevice, /etc/inet/hosts, /etc/inet/config, /etc/confnet.d/inet, /etc/inet/nb.conf, /var/adm/isl/ifile,<br>/usr/ns-home/admserv/ns-admin.conf, /etc/conf/bcfg.d/e3H, and of course /etc/hosts.<br><br>We did find that the arp command (with any switch, or argument) returns nothing.&nbsp;&nbsp;We checked the log at /var/adm/log/osmlog and found entries that say that rdisc_sock got <p>Tom Whitehead<br><a href=mailto:twhitehead@commeq.com>twhitehead@commeq.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>

 

[tomw]

Sorry...I guess space limitations ate the rest of my response!<br><br>Anyway, the rdisc_sock command rec'd NO Route to Host, and rpcbind rec'd Could not open connection on nbclts:&nbsp;&nbsp;System Error (And the same thing on nbcots).<br><br>/usr/adm/syslog confirms that these errors have repeated on every boot.&nbsp;&nbsp;We re-booted after applying all the minimum required patches ptf's 7045e, 7601h, 7602c, 7603c, 7608b, and 7616a.<br><br>At boot, the card is shown as follows:<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;%e3H&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;0xE000-0xE07F&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;11&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;-&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;3c9xx<br>This output is correct for this card.&nbsp;&nbsp;DCU confirms the address and IRQ, and there are no other devices in conflict.<br><br>Resmgr shows proper lines for e3H, net0, nb, nbclts, and nbcots.&nbsp;&nbsp;Although when we look at the Driver.o binary file in /etc/inst/nd/mdi/e3H the e3Hinit commands receive error messages like can't find e3h in resmgr, vendor id %d not supported, device id %d not supported, no memory for e3Hcookie, e3H_pAdapters, or e3H_pDriver.&nbsp;&nbsp;The e3Hopen commands say cannot allocate, or deallocate receive buffers.<br><br>I appreciate you patience if you've made it this far in this thread, and any assistance, ideas, or even a clue would be greatly appreciated. <p>Tom Whitehead<br><a href=mailto:twhitehead@commeq.com>twhitehead@commeq.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>

 

[AndyBo]

I've got to admit - you've gone a lot further into this than I would have done in your shoes! &nbsp;&nbsp;I think that, by now, I'd have chained one of our SCO support vendors to the server until they had it fixed...<br><br>Is there any chance that you can try a different brand of network card?&nbsp;&nbsp;I've not been able to find any specific 3c905 issues in relation to SCO, and I'm a bit surprised that yours isn't working, to tell the truth.<br><br>Is there a chance you could try a different NIC?&nbsp;&nbsp;Maybe a NE2000 or 3C509?&nbsp;&nbsp;Maybe a change of network card would solve things.<br><br>Something else just occurred to me - it's not an EISA box is it?&nbsp;&nbsp;I've had problems in the past with putting NICs into EISA boxes.&nbsp;&nbsp;Just a thought...<br><br>Sorry if that's not too much help, but I really can't think what could be causing your problem. <p> <br><a href=mailto: > </a><br><a href= > </a><br>--<br>
0 1 - Just my two bits

 

[tomw]

I wish I had a &quot;support&quot; person close enough to chain to this thing....<br><br>Yes, I tried a slew of cards before I started the campaign to make the 3c905 work.<br><br>The SCO hw comp page states that this card is &quot;SCO Tested & Certified&quot; in green,<br>meaning they have the driver, and it takes advantage of all these cards have to offer.<br>I have installed the nd_711.pkg, and it seems to install fine, but the end result is the <br>same.&nbsp;&nbsp;I tried a Kingston Card with the DEC21140 chipset that is working in another<br>server, i also tried a linksys card, a D-Link card, and 2 different NE2000 compatible <br>ones from my &quot;toy chest&quot; as well as 2 other variants of the 3c905 series: a 3C905-TX,<br>and a 3C905B-TX-MBA. In all cases (except the 3Com 905's), I got the link LED, but<br>that's all.&nbsp;&nbsp;Nobody has any drivers for these cards on this platform.&nbsp;&nbsp;The Kingston cards<br>are working in my OpenServer boxes, but the drivers are not compatible w/UW7...I <br>tried anyway, just before I re-initialized the array and did a clean install of the UW7 box.<br>The box is one I custom-built last year, with a DFI P2XBL/D mother-board, running <br>Dual-PII 450's with 256MB of SDRAM, and two 9.1GB IBM LVD SCSI's on the Adaptec<br>131 Raid Controller.&nbsp;&nbsp;I also have an NS-20 SCSI tape drive and a Toshiba SCSI CD-ROM.<br>The video is ATI 8MB AGP w/15&quot; PnP monitor.<br><br><br>Just for kicks, I threw a 4GB IDE drive in that box and disconnected the SCSI chain.&nbsp;&nbsp;The <br>drive was pre-loaded with SCO Open-Server 5.0.4 from another unit, and I was able to <br>install the same 3-Com card on that platform and it works!&nbsp;&nbsp;I did the same with a HDD <br>containing W98/O97 and it worked too, so I'm thinking that my hardware is OK.<br>I dont have any 3C509's...All my ISA stuff is NE2000 comp.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>It seems I'm really stuck till this product &quot;matures&quot; enough, but I am dismayed at SCO's <br>not having better information available (I've scoured their website).&nbsp;&nbsp;All the forums I've <br>found on the web seem to indicate that lots of people are having problems with UW7.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>I went with it because my OpenServer boxes were so bullet-proof over the years (we've<br>been with SCO for our servers since Xenix).&nbsp;&nbsp;I had a 5.0.4 unit online for 327 days straight<br>with no downtime until I turned it off to change the tape drives and re-link the kernel.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br>I know your not supposed to run them that long, but I had the data mirrored on another <br>machine, and was curious how long it could go.&nbsp;&nbsp;I blinked before it did!!<br><br>Thanks anyway Andy... <p>Tom Whitehead<br><a href=mailto:twhitehead@commeq.com>twhitehead@commeq.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>

 

[tomw]

Just an FYI follow-up to advise that my problem (with the NIC anyway) are resolved.&nbsp;&nbsp;Thanks to AndyBo for his assistance...<br><br>It seems I had two problems...one with the card itself...I ran the DOS config utility from 3-Com, and found that the card could not &quot;auto-detect&quot; my media.&nbsp;&nbsp;I could specify 10, or 100, but it would not auto-detect.&nbsp;&nbsp;The same held true for the duplex setting.&nbsp;&nbsp;Auto-detect had it at the default Full duplex, and our Linksys hubs operate at half duplex. <br><br>Changing those two values, and re-booting gave me a Link LED on the 3-Com card.&nbsp;&nbsp;Part 1 solved...(BTW, this same auto-detect feature failed to properly initialize all 3 of the 3Com 905's I've been working with on this box).<br><br>Next, I (on advice from another Tech forum participant) installed one addtional patch from SCO, the ptf7604 which supposedly only fixes support for hot-pluggable devices, but had a positive impact on my system.&nbsp;&nbsp;Next re-boot (and re-link of the kernel) resulted in the driver initiating the card, and voila!!&nbsp;&nbsp;Part 2 solved....<br><br> <p>Tom Whitehead<br><a href=mailto:twhitehead@commeq.com>twhitehead@commeq.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>