TechNote: Problems with eri Fast Ethernet Interface

The eri Fast Ethernet device is a new device found in the next generation of Sun hardware, including Sun Blade workstations, Sun Fire servers, and newer models in the Netra T line, such as the T1 AC200/DC200. Unlike the older hme device, the new eri device is a standalone ethernet device with an internal transceiver only, whereas the older hme was often combined with SCSI functionality and supported the external MII transceivers.

Because of the newness of this device there are several hardware issues which may cause confusion. Some issues reported by various people include:

• Failures after suspending/resuming systems with onboard interfaces
• System hangs when running the VTS test suite
• Device failures during network load tests
• Failures when using network multipathing
• Problems on systems using Dynamic Reconfig
• Other reproducable and non-reproducable failures

The simple fix for all of these problems is to ensure the system is running the latest revision of patch 110723-03 and its prerequisite, 109882-04. These patches update the /kernel/drv/sparcv9/eri driver and its header files, respectively.