Why does restarting the network interfaces on the HP Blade system that use the Broadcom 5715 NIC fail?

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 7
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 3
  • HP DL380G5
  • Broadcom 5715 NIC

Issue

Why does restarting the network interfaces on the HP Blade system that use the Broadcom 5715 NIC fail?

Resolution

Certain HP hardware ships with an optional Broadcom 5715 NIC. The bnx2 module that ships with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 7 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 3 contains a bug that makes restarting these NICs fail. The BCM5715 works during network installs and after the OS has intially loaded, but subsequent restarts of the NIC will fail.

The models currently effected include the BL460C G1 and BL480C G1 blades.

The hardware certification page for HP DL380G5 on RHEL4U3, please see, https://hardware.redhat.com/show.cgi?id=193667

Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 Update 8 (available July 18, 2006) and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 4 (available August 7, 2006) will ship with fixes for this problem.

A temporary fix for those who have this problem before the release dates of the fixes should update their bnx2 modules from HP.

RHEL 3

http://h18023.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/24758.html

RHEL 4

http://h18023.www1.hp.com/support/files/server/us/download/24759.html

Note: The link for the driver provided by hardware vendor, which might be changed. If can not get the driver with the links above, please contact the hardware vendor.

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