[Bug 415353] Re: karmic/lucid installation slow on "detecting network hardware" with bnx2x

[Chris Halse Rogers]

Hello Mattias, or anyone else affected,

Accepted initramfs-tools into lucid-proposed. The package will build now
and be available at http://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/initramfs-
tools/0.92bubuntu78.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed
repository.

Please help us by testing this new package.  See
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to
enable and use -proposed.  Your feedback will aid us getting this update
out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please change the bug tag from
verification-needed to verification-done.  If it does not, change the
tag to verification-failed.  In either case, details of your testing
will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification .  Thank you in
advance!

** Changed in: initramfs-tools (Ubuntu Lucid)
       Status: In Progress => Fix Committed

** Tags added: verification-needed

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/415353

Title:
  karmic/lucid installation slow on "detecting network hardware" with
  bnx2x

Status in “initramfs-tools” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in “linux” package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in “initramfs-tools” source package in Lucid:
  Fix Committed
Status in “linux” source package in Lucid:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: linux-image-2.6.31-5-generic

  When installing some of my new bl460c g6 blades with bnx2x 10GE
  interfaces, the step "detecting network hardware" takes a really long
  time. This is probably due to the installer scanning all interfaces
  several times, and these blades have 8 of them (each physical
  interface is split into 4 virtual one, each exposed as a nic by the
  kernel), together with a 50-second timeout in the driver.

  50 seconds times 8 interfaces times 3-4 probing rounds makes for a
  total delay of 20-30 minutes, which is a bit painful.

  The delay seems to be in "[bnx2x_wait_ramrod:6741(ethX)]timeout
  polling for state c0000 on IDX [1]". Attached is a sample screen of
  the installer messages.

  I am booting a slightly modified (bnx2x dependencies added to the
  initrd) karmic netboot installer as of last week, will try the latest
  version as soon as #360966 gets fixed.

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

  SRU Justification (iniramfs-tools):

  [Impact]

  The libcrc32c module depends in a non-detectable way on the
  crypto/crc32c module. If any driver (like the bnx2x) depends on
  libcrc32c there will be problems while loading the driver without the
  rootfs already attached. In the bnx2x case at least this delays the
  boot process by 3-4 minutes while the driver waits and retries the
  modprobe of libcrc32c.

  [Fix]

  This is a backport from Debian which is contained in newer releases.
  It adds a checking function which looks for libcrc32c being in the
  initramfs and if it is there manually adds crc32c.

  [Testcase]

  Before this change or if there is no driver required that pulls in libcrc32c
  #> gunzip -c <initrd> | cpio -t | grep crc32
  would show either nothing or libcrc32c alone. After the change it shows either none or both crc32 modules.

  [Regression Potential]

  Low. Even if the crc32c module would be added incorrectly, it would
  not be used. The package could fail to build (though test build was
  done in a current Lucid environment) or the generation of initramfs
  could fail to unrelated reasons.

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