[Virtual-pkg-base-maintainers] Bug#779384: base: Gigabit Ethernet connection being downgraded to 100Mb/s mode (Renegotiation issues)

[Info Geek]

Package: base
Severity: serious

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.8
  APT prefers stable-updates
  APT policy: (500, 'stable-updates'), (500, 'stable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash


-- Problem Description:

A server machine with a Gigabit NIC is directly linked to a router supporting Gigabit connetcions.

After a while or after an unexpected power failure on the router(or restart), the Gigabit Connection on Gigabit NIC gets dumbed down to 100 Mb/s mode.


-- Workaround:

The only working solution discovered, is to retart the server machine(restarting router does not solve the issue). After doing so,
the connection gets correctly negotiated to 1000 Mb/s mode.


-- Failed attempts:

Using "ethtool" and "mii-tool" to request/force renegotiation with varying flags and parameters did not produce any positive effects.

Attempting to reset/restart networking results in no effect or "SSH hanging" depending on the method used.


-- Technical Information:

{([ lshw ])}

           *-network
                description: Ethernet interface
                product: AR8161 Gigabit Ethernet
                vendor: Atheros Communications Inc.
                physical id: 0
                bus info: pci at 0000:02:00.0
                logical name: eth0
                version: 10
                serial: 90:2b:34:5e:19:5f
                size: 100Mbit/s
                capacity: 1Gbit/s
                width: 64 bits
                clock: 33MHz
                capabilities: pm pciexpress msi msix bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
                configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=alx duplex=full firmware=alx ip=192.168.23.44 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=twisted pair speed=100Mbit/s
                resources: irq:43 memory:f7c00000-f7c3ffff ioport:e000(size=128)



{([ ethtool eth0 ])}

        Supported ports: [ TP ]
        Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                1000baseT/Full
        Supported pause frame use: No
        Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
        Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                1000baseT/Full
        Advertised pause frame use: No
        Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
        Speed: 100Mb/s
        Duplex: Full
        Port: Twisted Pair
        PHYAD: 0
        Transceiver: internal
        Auto-negotiation: on
        MDI-X: Unknown
        Supports Wake-on: pg
        Wake-on: pg
        Current message level: 0x00000000 (0)

        Link detected: yes



{([ ethtool -i eth0 ])}

driver: alx
version:
firmware-version: alx
bus-info: 0000:02:00.0
supports-statistics: no
supports-test: no
supports-eeprom-access: no
supports-register-dump: yes
supports-priv-flags: no



{([ http://www.asus.com/Networking/RTN56U/ ])}

Product: Dual-Band Wireless-N600 Gigabit Router
Firmware version: 3.0.0.4.376.3754