Message-ID: <38E73398.E1727365@uow.edu.au>
Date:   Sun, 02 Apr 2000 11:48:40 +0000
From:   Andrew Morton <andrewm@uow.edu.au>
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To:     netdev <netdev@oss.sgi.com>
Subject: coverage
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How do you guys test things like:

  - max_interrupt_work exceeded
  - Tx stuck, invoke tx_timeout
  - All the possible error conditions like rxearly,
    receiver overrun, etc, etc.


My approach to the first two was to put a 5 mSec delay in
boomerang_rx(), decrease max_interrupt_work to 5 and ping flood it.

This produces some pretty ugly results.  Most of the time the packet
dumping code:

 if ((status & (0x7fe - (UpComplete | DownComplete))) == 0) {
    /* Just ack these and return. */
    outw(AckIntr | UpComplete | DownComplete, ioaddr + EL3_CMD);

works just fine.  But just occasionally this test doesn't return true
and we fall into:

  printk(KERN_WARNING "%s: Too much work in interrupt, status "
             "%4.4x.  Temporarily disabling functions (%4.4x).\n",
              dev->name, status, SetStatusEnb | ((~status) & 0x7FE));
              /* Disable all pending interrupts. */
              outw(SetStatusEnb | ((~status) & 0x7FE), ioaddr +
EL3_CMD);
              outw(AckIntr | 0x7FF, ioaddr + EL3_CMD);
              /* The timer will reenable interrupts. */
               break;

and all hell breaks loose.  Very occasionally the tx_timeout will do the
right thing, but most of the time the ISR is invoked (possibly for Tx -
I haven't checked).  Within the ISR the following test:

        if (status & RxComplete)
              vortex_rx(dev);
 
returns true.  We enter vortex_rx()!   But this is with 3c905B
hardware.  vortex_rx() doesn't talk to 3c905's and it loops infinitely.

I don't want to blow more time on this corner case if there is a better
way to exercise this code.

Of course, my testing methods could be causing the above problems to
occur...


-- 
-akpm-
"Excellent. If it will not panic here, your kernel will be destroyed
secretly and fatally" - Alexey K