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Voice Quality and Network Errors seen when using PowerMedia XMS on systems using a BroadCom NIC

Symptom:

Voice quality issues such as choppy audio, no audio/silence, jitter, RTCP timeout and network timeouts are sometimes observed when running Dialogic® PowerMedia™ Extended Media Server (XMS) 1.1 or 2.0 on servers running with Broadcom Ethernet Network Interface Cards (NICs).

Reason for the issue:

The default driver for the Broadcom NIC that is included in PowerMedia XMS ISO/"kickstart" image can cause voice quality issues and should be upgraded to the latest version of the driver from the BroadCom Site.    This article will describe the procedure on upgrading to the latest driver (as of March 2013) for the Broadcom NIC.

  
Solution:  

1) Determine which Broadcom NIC you have on your system

At a command line prompt, enter the following command:

lspci | grep Broadcom

An example output of this command will look like this:

[root@servername ~]# lspci | grep Broadcom

00:05.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom BCM5785 [HT1000] PCI/PCI-X Bridge

00:06.0 Host bridge: Broadcom BCM5785 [HT1000] Legacy South Bridge

00:06.2 ISA bridge: Broadcom BCM5785 [HT1000] LPC

00:07.0 USB controller: Broadcom BCM5785 [HT1000] USB (rev 01)

00:07.1 USB controller: Broadcom BCM5785 [HT1000] USB (rev 01)

00:07.2 USB controller: Broadcom BCM5785 [HT1000] USB (rev 01)

00:0f.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom HT2100 PCI-Express Bridge (rev a2)

00:10.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom HT2100 PCI-Express Bridge (rev a2)

00:11.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom HT2100 PCI-Express Bridge (rev a2)

00:12.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom HT2100 PCI-Express Bridge (rev a2)

00:13.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom HT2100 PCI-Express Bridge (rev a2)

01:0d.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom BCM5785 [HT1000] PCI/PCI-X Bridge (rev c0)

01:0e.0 IDE interface: Broadcom BCM5785 [HT1000] SATA (Native SATA Mode)

40:0f.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom HT2100 PCI-Express Bridge (rev a2)

40:10.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom HT2100 PCI-Express Bridge (rev a2)

40:11.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom HT2100 PCI-Express Bridge (rev a2)

40:12.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom HT2100 PCI-Express Bridge (rev a2)

40:13.0 PCI bridge: Broadcom HT2100 PCI-Express Bridge (rev a2)

41:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM5709 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 20)

41:00.1 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM5709 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 20)

[root@servername ~]#

In this example, the model of the adapter is "Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM5709 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 20)".

2) Obtain the latest driver version from the Broadcom site
 

The latest driver version can be obtained from the Broadcom site.

In this example, the driver for the NetXtreme II BCM5709 Gigabit Ethernet driver is located on the Broadcom website:

The server being used in this example has a NetXtreme II with the 5709 chipset. On the next page, the following Linux package is selected for download:

3)  Transfer the Drivers to the PowerMedia XMS server 

The files containing the driver should be transferred to the PowerMedia XMS system. This transfer can be done using FTP from the system or by using an application such as winscp to a directory specified by the user, for example, /tmp directory.

4) Log onto the PowerMedia XMS system 
 

You can log onto the system via ssh by using an ssh client such as putty.

5) Extract driver the files 

(a) Navigate via the command line to the location where the driver files were placed on the PowerMedia XMS system.

(b) Uncompress the file. For .zip files, use unzip <filename> to decompress, for .tar files, use tar xvf <filename> and for .tgz files, use tar xvzf <filename>.

In this example, the driver file is called linux-7.4.27.zip.   The driver files are extracted by unzipping the content:

[root@vid_demo dan]# unzip linux-7.4.27.zip
Archive:  linux-7.4.27.zip
   creating: Server/Linux/Driver/
  inflating: Server/Linux/Driver/INSTALL.TXT
  inflating: Server/Linux/Driver/netxtreme2-7.4.27-1.src.rpm
  inflating: Server/Linux/Driver/netxtreme2-7.4.27.tar.gz
  inflating: Server/Linux/Driver/netxtreme2_sup-7.4.27-1.ISO.tar.gz
  inflating: Server/Linux/Driver/README.bnx2.TXT
  inflating: Server/Linux/Driver/README.bnx2fc.TXT
  inflating: Server/Linux/Driver/README.bnx2i.TXT
  inflating: Server/Linux/Driver/README.bnx2x.TXT
  inflating: Server/Linux/Driver/RELEASE.bnx2.TXT
  inflating: Server/Linux/Driver/RELEASE.bnx2fc.TXT
  inflating: Server/Linux/Driver/RELEASE.bnx2i.TXT
  inflating: Server/Linux/Driver/RELEASE.bnx2x.TXT
  inflating: Server/Linux/Driver/RELEASE.fclibs.TXT
[root@vid_demo dan]#

6) Installing the Driver  

The updated Broadcom driver now needs to be installed.  

IMPORTANT NOTE:

• Each of the Broadcom drivers may have a different install procedure. 
• Each driver package will include an INSTALL.TXT file that provides detailed instructions on how to install the specific driver version. 
• The instructions can be viewed by using the following command: 

more Server/Linux/Driver/INSTALL.TXT 

 In this example, the following instructions were specified by the INSTALL.TXT file for the version that was downloaded : 

 1. Install the source RPM package:

   rpm -ivh netxtreme2-<version>.src.rpm

2. CD to the RPM path and build the binary driver for your kernel:

   cd /usr/src/{redhat,OpenLinux,turbo,packages,rpm ..}
        (For RHEL 6.0 and above, cd ~/rpmbuild )

   rpmbuild -bb SPECS/netxtreme2.spec (for RPM version 4.x.x)

3. Install the newly built package (driver and man page):

   rpm -ivh RPMS/<arch>/netxtreme2-<version>.<arch>.rpm
4. Unload existing driver if necessary:

   rmmod bnx2
5. Load the bnx2 driver for the BCM5706/BCM5708/5709/5716 devices:

   insmod bnx2.o
or
   insmod bnx2.ko (on 2.6.x kernels)
or
   modprobe bnx2
7. Reboot the server

7) Verify Network Connectivity

Once the system has restarted, you can attempt to check connectivity by connecting to the box via the web GUI or SSH.  Also you can attempt to ping into and out of the system.

Further Troubleshooting 

If the above procedure does not resolve the issue, be sure that you have all the system tuning parameters set as per the System Performance Tuning section of the System Configuration guide.

Legal Note

This document discusses one or more open source products, systems and/or releases. Dialogic is not responsible for your decision to use open source in connection with Dialogic products (including without limitation those referred to herein), nor is Dialogic responsible for any present or future effects such usage might have, including without limitation effects on your products, your business, or your intellectual property rights.