I am trying to monitor (eg use bpf & tcpdump to see packets) a FDDI ring with a Digital DEFPA FDDI NIC (and the fpa driver) via a fiber tap. Therefore the interface only gets to receive, not transmit. This doesn't work, I assume because the firmware on the DEFPA wants/needs to participate in the exchange of SMT frames on the ring (I am not familiar with FDDI detail so I do not know exactly what is going on). Under certain conditions, the DEFPA will receive frames for a short period of time before declaring that the link is unavailable. Specifically, if I break the ring (with the monitoring interface still plugged into the tap) then reconnect it, then I get the following sequence of log messages: May 17 14:16:39 demo4 /kernel: fpa1: Link Available May 17 14:16:39 demo4 /kernel: fpa1: Unsolicited Event: Link: Ring Beacon Initi ated May 17 14:16:41 demo4 /kernel: fpa1: Link Unavailable May 17 14:16:53 demo4 /kernel: fpa1: Unsolicited Event: Link: Trace Initiated May 17 14:17:08 demo4 /kernel: fpa1: Halted: halt code = 5 (PC Trace Path Test) May 17 14:17:09 demo4 /kernel: fpa1: Link Unavailable tcpdump gets packets from the "Link Available" through about 10 seconds before "Halted". I am hoping that the DEFPA can be told to "don't worry be happy" and ignore the lack of participation in the ring. Has anyone done anything like this? Does anyone know where to get a programming manual for the DEFPA? thanks, andrew To Unsubscribe: send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
