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reduce boot till ping

rshal2
New Contributor II
2,862 Views

Hello,

We need to boot system fast till ethernet functions correctly with ping.

We made a lot of effort, and got a little improvment, yet it still takes a lot of time till ping success

I would like to ask for Intel's suggestion as to what steps should be taken to get a further reduction and the timings.

A short description of what we did :

1. our configuration is based on kontron board, with pci i210 ethernet adapter:

# lspci

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series SoC Transaction Register (rev 11)

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Graphics & Display (rev 11)

00:13.0 IDE interface: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series SATA IDE Controller (rev 11)

00:16.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series OTG USB Device (rev 11)

00:17.0 SD Host controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series eMMC 4.5 Controller (rev 11)

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series High Definition Audio Controller (rev 11)

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series PCI Express Root Port 1 (rev 11)

00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series PCI Express Root Port 3 (rev 11)

00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series PCI Express Root Port 4 (rev 11)

00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series USB EHCI (rev 11)

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation Atom Processor Z36xxx/Z37xxx Series Power Control Unit (rev 11)

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation Atom Processor E3800 Series SMBus Controller (rev 11)

01:00.0 PCI bridge: PLX Technology, Inc. PEX 8505 5-lane, 5-port PCI Express Switch (rev aa)

03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03)

2. The initial system takes ~11 seconds from boot till ping ack response :

2.1 interval of 3 seconds till kernel starts

2.2 interval of 1.8 seconds till init.d scripts starts

2.3 interval of 3 seconds from igb init till link is up

2.4 interval of 3 seconds from link up till we get ping ack response

4. we made various trials and modifications:

4.1. changed igb kernel to force disable of autonegotiation - improvement of 2 seconds, in intervbal 2.4 (from link up till ping),

4.2. We start igb in bootargs (ip=...) , so that it will starts earlier in kernel.

4.3. We use static arp.

I have the following questions:

1. Why disabling auto-negotiation improved the interval from link up till ping (interval 2.4) ? I mean, I expected it to reduce 2.3 interval (the time till link is up) instead. Does it make sense ?

2. we probably can't use 100M, because our application shall need 1G, yet trying to disable auto-negotiation and force 1G, did not work, and the time inter

3. What steps should I take now ?

4. Should I change NVM ? if yes - Why NVM should give better results than directly modify driver as needed ?

Thank you for any suggestion on this issue,

ranran

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10 Replies
Adolfo_S_Intel
Moderator
811 Views

Hello ranchu

Please provide the following information?

1) What operating system are you using? Please also indicate if you are performing any modification to the kernel

2) What firmware are you using? UEFI, Coreboot, other? It is designed by you or by a third party vendor?

3) Is your I210 embedded in your board or it is a third party PCI board?

4) If your I210 is embedded, can you check if the issue occurs with a third party I210 device?

5) What version of the driver are you using?

Best regards,

Adolfo Sanchez

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rshal2
New Contributor II
811 Views

Hi,

1) What operating system are you using? Please also indicate if you are performing any modification to the kernel

buildroot, kernel 4.10.

The only modifications are related to trying to reduce the time till ping, in igb driver for example.

2) What firmware are you using? UEFI, Coreboot, other? It is designed by you or by a third party vendor?

kontron come-mbt10 , with atom processor. Firmware: BIOS (customized by kontron for shorter boot time) , syslinux and kernel linux.

3) Is your I210 embedded in your board or it is a third party PCI board?

It's embedded in board (not external pci board), but seen with lspci as a pci connected adapter.

4) If your I210 is embedded, can you check if the issue occurs with a third party I210 device?

I don't have one. Can you give example for i210 third party device ? Is it that the timing seems to be too long from your experience ?

5) What version of the driver are you using?

igb 5.4.0-k , full dmesg of log from powerup till ping success is attached in file.

Thank you for any idea,

Ran

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rshal2
New Contributor II
811 Views

Hello Adolfo,

I've added start/stop log in main igb functions.

I can now see things more clearly.

please see the attached log,

it seems that igb_watchdog is responsible somehow for waking up and checking things, before deciding that link is up.

Maybe there is a way to call it higher rate ?

Thank you,

ranran

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Adolfo_S_Intel
Moderator
811 Views

Hello ranchu,

Thanks for your udpated, I will provide this information to our contacts working with I210.

Best regards,

Adolfo Sanchez

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CarlosAM_INTEL
Moderator
811 Views

Hello, ranchu:

Thanks for your reply.

In order to be on the same page, could you please tell us if the situation is related to a design developed by you or a third party one? In case that it is a third party one, could you please give us all the information related to it? Or if it is your own design, could you please tell us if it has been reviewed by Intel?

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Best regards,

Carlos_A.

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rshal2
New Contributor II
811 Views

Hi,

We use comb-mbt10 Kontron board with its mother board.

Regards,

Ran

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CarlosAM_INTEL
Moderator
811 Views

Hello, ranchu:

Thanks for your update.

We would like to help you with your consultations related to any third-party device, but we suggest you contact their manufacturers to obtain the proper information.

In this case as a reference please address your questions to the channels listed on the following website:

https://www.kontron.com/about-kontron/company-overview/contact-us/forms/contact-support https://www.kontron.com/about-kontron/company-overview/contact-us/forms/contact-support

We hope that this information may help you.

Best regards,

Carlos_A.

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rshal2
New Contributor II
811 Views

Hello,

We have contacted them 2 weeks ago, and they told us that they don't support Intel issues.

So, I understand there won't be any support or assistance for this issue, in any direction ? .....

Regards,

Ran

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CarlosAM_INTEL
Moderator
816 Views

Hello, ranchu:

Thanks for your reply.

We can give you information that may help you but only the manufacturer can confirm you if it is valid for their devices or can give you the proper information for their products.

In order to be on the same page, could you please tell us if you have confirmed your information stated in your communication of the past March 29th, 2018 7:42 AM with the manufacturer of the affected device?

This suggestion is based on the fact that only the manufacturer of this device can tell you what is supported.

Waiting for your reply.

Best regards,

Carlos_A.

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rshal2
New Contributor II
816 Views

Hello Carlos,

We have tried to contact manufacturer (Kontron), yet they did not have any additional information to give us or assist regarding Intel's i210.

There is DS for come-mbt10 here:

https://www.kontron.com/downloads/datasheets/datasheet_come-mbt10.pdf https://www.kontron.com/downloads/datasheets/datasheet_come-mbt10.pdf

Best Regards,

Ran

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