Bug#681089: off the network

[Berni Elbourn <berni421@gmail.com>]

Today with this driver:

$ sudo ethtool -i eth0
driver: tg3
version: 3.121
firmware-version: 5722-v3.07, ASFIPMI v6.02
bus-info: 0000:11:00.0

eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:21:5a:d3:d0:0c
          inet addr:192.168.2.10  Bcast:192.168.2.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          inet6 addr: fe80::221:5aff:fed3:d00c/64 Scope:Link
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:30785 errors:0 dropped:12193 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:21253 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
          RX bytes:2776577 (2.6 MiB)  TX bytes:157738711 (150.4 MiB)
          Interrupt:19

The switch shows lots of transmissions on the port. The system was unreachable until I issued an ifdown/up. But just 
before this event was logged:

Jul 11 11:11:35 red kernel: [ 1935.264014] tg3 0000:11:00.0: vpd r/w failed.  This is likely a firmware bug on this 
device.  Contact the card vendor for a firmware update.

Is this relevant: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/linux/kernel/1233398?do=post_view_threaded#1233398

--
"Confidence is what you have before you understand a problem" - Woody Allen