Cluster:Netgear GBIC issues

The symptoms

Port trunking on the cairo Netgear GSM712 GBIC ports causes frequent, repeatable delays of a few seconds for no obvious reason. Delays on a single GBIC/pair of GBICs are also repeatable.

Things to remember

• Is LACP stable?
• Do we need LACP for port trunking?
• Is STP/RSTP on Netgear products stable?
• Could we try backing down to an earlier firmware? (We did a jump from 2.2.0→2.6.0 recently.)

Things I've tried

• Auto LACP enabled/disabled
• STP/RSTP/No spanning-tree
• Swapping cables
• Swapped top GBIC
• Swapped bottom GBICs
• Marked all GBIC modules with identifying scratches.
• STP occassionally puts port in blocking mode when the pauses happen

Tests

Single channel

• GBIC 1 in port 11 on SW0, GBIC 2 in port 11 on SW1, other GBICs depopulated: Pauses
• GBIC 1 in port 11 on SW1, GBIC 2 in port 11 on SW0, other GBICs depopulated: Pauses
• GBIC 1 in port 12 on SW1, GBIC 2 in port 12 on SW0, other GBICs depopulated: Pauses
• GBIC 1 in port 12 on SW0, GBIC 2 in port 12 on SW1, other GBICs depopulated: Pauses
• GBIC 1 in port 12 on SW0, GBIC 3 in port 12 on SW1, other GBICs depopulated: Good
• GBIC 1 in port 12 on SW1, GBIC 3 in port 12 on SW0, other GBICs depopulated: Good
• GBIC 1 in port 11 on SW0, GBIC 3 in port 11 on SW1, other GBICs depopulated: Good
• GBIC 1 in port 11 on SW1, GBIC 3 in port 11 on SW0, other GBICs depopulated: Good
• GBIC 1 in port 11 on SW1, GBIC 4 in port 11 on SW0, other GBICs depopulated: Good
• GBIC 1 in port 11 on SW0, GBIC 4 in port 11 on SW1, other GBICs depopulated: Good
• GBIC 1 in port 12 on SW0, GBIC 4 in port 12 on SW0, other GBICs depopulated: Good
• GBIC 1 in port 12 on SW1, GBIC 4 in port 12 on SW1, other GBICs depopulated: Good
• GBIC 2 in port 11 on SW0, GBIC 3 in port 11 on SW1, other GBICs depopulated: Pauses
• GBIC 2 in port 11 on SW1, GBIC 3 in port 11 on SW0, other GBICs depopulated: Pauses
• GBIC 2 in port 12 on SW1, GBIC 3 in port 12 on SW0, other GBICs depopulated: Pauses
• GBIC 2 in port 12 on SW0, GBIC 3 in port 12 on SW1, other GBICs depopulated: Pauses
• GBIC 3 in port 11 on SW0, GBIC 4 in port 11 on SW1, other GBICs depopulated: Good
• GBIC 3 in port 11 on SW1, GBIC 4 in port 11 on SW0, other GBICs depopulated: Good
• GBIC 3 in port 12 on SW1, GBIC 4 in port 12 on SW0, other GBICs depopulated: Good
• GBIC 3 in port 12 on SW0, GBIC 4 in port 12 on SW1, other GBICs depopulated: Good