Weird bonding driver and tulip quad-card interaction on 2.4.17

I've installed 2.4.17 on a 2-cpu p2 333 system and am getting some kind of corruption in the ifconfig output.

I'm running debian, mostly testing, some unstable (most of the unstable is gnome-related, though). The net-tools package version is 1.60-4, and netbase package is version 4.07.

I see the following when I test:

[spacey@obelisk mp3]$ sudo /sbin/modprobe bonding iimon=100
Warning: /lib/modules/2.4.17/kernel/drivers/net/bonding.o parameter max_bonds has max < min! [spacey@obelisk mp3]$ sudo /sbin/modprobe tulip
[spacey@obelisk mp3]$ /sbin/lsmod
Module Size Used by Not tainted
bonding 11180 0 (unused)
[...]
tulip 37568 0 (unused)
[...]
[spacey@obelisk bonding]$ sudo ifconfig bond0 10.0.3.20 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 10.0.3.255 [spacey@obelisk bonding]$ sudo route add -net 10.0.3.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 10.0.3.20 [spacey@obelisk bonding]$ /sbin/ifconfig bond0
bond0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet addr:10.0.3.20 Bcast:10.0.3.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MASTER MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)

[spacey@obelisk bonding]$ /sbin/ifconfig eth1
eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:80:C8:B9:43:89
BROADCAST MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0 TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b) Interrupt:18 Base address:0x2000

and the same for eth[2-4] with their MAC address incrementing by 1.

Now, when bonding the interfaces using the ifenslave included with the kernel in linux/Documentation/networking/ifenslave.c:

[spacey@obelisk bonding]$ gcc -I /usr/src/linux-2.4.17/include -o /tmp/ifenslave /usr/src/linux-2.4.17/Documentation/networking/ifenslave.c [spacey@obelisk bonding]$ sudo /tmp/ifenslave bond0 eth1 eth2 eth3 eth4

OK, now watch this:
eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:80:C8:B9:43:89
Media:U<89><E5><83><EC <8B>f<83>8^Du^N<83><C4><F4><83><C0>^BP<E8><E1><FE><FF><FF><EB> <83><C4><FC>j@ <83><C4><F4>h>>^<E8><DD><8C><FF><FF><83><C4>^PPh i^<E8>7
inet addr:10.0.3.20 Bcast:10.0.3.255 Mask:255.255.255.0 UP BROADCAST NOTRAILERS RUNNING SLAVE MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:1 errors:1 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:60 (60.0 b) TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
Interrupt:18 Base address:0x2000

eth[1-4] are all the same - something in the media field is being clobbered or otherwise messed up. The same thing, with the same model/make of quad nic, the same driver and the same kernel, though slightly different build options does work on an alpha.

I've mentioned this on the bonding list, but nothing has turned up. Can anyone suggest what might be doing this, and what I should be looking at to figure out a fix?

If relevant .configs would help, let me know and I'll send them along.

TIA,
-Peter

The 5 year plan:
In five years we'll make up another plan.
Or just re-use this one.

As a follow-up, Chad T. on the bonding list pointed out to me that there is no Media flag normally output by ifconfig. This would lead me to believe that somehow the bonding driver is perhaps overwriting the MAC address in my case. How can this have happened? Why is it only on this system?

-Peter

The 5 year plan:
In five years we'll make up another plan.
Or just re-use this one.

It *is* printed:

    if (hw->print != NULL && (! (hw_null_address(hw, ptr->hwaddr) &&
                  hw->suppress_null_addr)))
    printf(_("HWaddr %s  "), hw->print(ptr->hwaddr));
#ifdef IFF_PORTSEL
    if (ptr->flags & IFF_PORTSEL) {
    printf(_("Media:%s"), if_port_text[ptr->map.port][0]);
    if (ptr->flags & IFF_AUTOMEDIA)
        printf(_("(auto)"));
    }
#endif
    printf("\n");

So, something has set IFF_PORTSEL, and ptr->map.port is not within bounds. Or you have a kernel which does not support IFF_PORTSEL, but something else is using ptr->flags with different values...

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