I210 dropping all network packets send from NC-SI over MCTP

[EmielBrink]

I am currently working on a server project using a custom motherboard where we have a Management Controller connected to an I210 through SMBus. The I210 serves as the Network Interface Controller for the host system. The idea is to connect the MC and I210 through NC-SI over MCTP using SMBus for sideband functionality. I am running into some issues with the NC-SI pass-through functionality regarding sending and receiving ethernet packets via the sideband interface.

I am unable to successfully send Ethernet packets from the MC to the LAN using the sideband interface. I am, however, able to receive both multicast and broadcast packets on the MC from the LAN. When I use the NC-SI "Get NC-SI Pass-through statistics" command, I was able to verify that the packets send from the MC do actually arrive at the I210, however they are all dropped (the Pass-through TX packets dropped counter equals the number of packets send from the MC).

Here are the steps I have taken so far:

1. Erased and re-flashed the I210 using an EFI shell on the host system

2. Verified the I210 is functioning correctly via the host system

3. Verified the I210 SMBus slave address (0x49) of the I210 is reachable via the MC

4. Verified the I210 responds to MCTP commands such as Set EID via the MC over SMBus (the MC also acts as the MCTP bus owner in our configuration).

5. Verified the I210 responds to NC-SI commands using NC-SI over MCTP over SMBus.

For NC-SI initialization I go through the following steps. I get the correct response back from the I210 for each of these commands.

1. Send a "Clear Initial State" command.

2. Send a "Select Package" command with hardware arbitration disabled. (I don't think this should be necessary after sending the clear initial state command)

3. Send a "Set MAC address" command to set the MAC address of the first filter and set it to enabled. The MAC address is send in network order, so MSB first, LSB last.

4. Send a "Enable broadcast filter" command, with all filters enabled.

5. Send a "Enable global multicast filter" command, with all filters enabled.

6. Send a "Disable VLAN" command.

7. Send a "AEN enable" command.

8. Send a "Enable Channel network TX" command.

9. Send a "Enable Channel" command.

Afterwards I can confirm the settings such as MAC address and filter options are correct using the "Get Parameters" command.

After going through the above initialization steps the I210 will send multicast and broadcast packets from the LAN to the MC using the sideband interface but will drop any packets send from the MC to the LAN using the sideband interface.

I currently suspect this has something to do with the MAC address filtering. An additional characteristic of the NC-SI over MCTP binding (DMTF document DSP0261) is that the identification of channel is done using the registered MAC address. Any packet that is received from the MC where the source MAC address does not match the I210 MAC filter is dropped and counted in the Pass-through TX packets dropped counter as part of the NC-SI Pass-through Statistics Response (See DSP0261 section 7.2.1).

This would line up with the currently witnessed behavior,  where all MC to LAN packets are dropped and only broadcast and multicast packets are forwarded from LAN to MC.

I would like to know what the byte order for MAC addresses is in the Set MAC address command for NC-SI for the I210. Does this differ from the network-order specified in the NS-SI specification? Also, are there any example programs for Pass-Through using NC-SI over MCPT  for the I210 that I could use?

If anyone is able to assist me in the matter it would be greatly appreciated. If any more specific details need to be provided please let me know.

[EmielBrink]

For completeness, here are the SSU logs I've gathered before.

I've ran the tool twice with the following parameters:

All_Information_networking.txt: Gathering all information from the system excluding 3rd party logs

Log_Only_networking.txt: Gathering only 3rd party logs

I Should note that the problem I am having mostly relates to the witnessed behavior of the I210. The I210 seems to work fine for the host system, only that it drops all packets send to it by the sideband interface. It is also not able to send any messages to the sideband interface other than broadcast and multicast traffic.

[Diego_INTEL]

Hello @EmielBrink,

Thank you for contacting Intel Embedded Community.

Also, thank you for all the detailed explanation, I'm trying to check what can be helpful, I will get back to you if I find something.

Best regards,

@Diego_INTEL 

[EmielBrink]

Hello Diego,

I posted this question in the Ethernet Products forum but was redirected to here to ask this question.

I wanted to ask if the NC-SI over MCTP sideband interface of the I210 can be used using the NC-SI commands specified in the NC-SI specification only, or if usage of specific Intel OEM commands is required.

Kind regards,

Emiel

Post on the Ethernet Products forum: https://community.intel.com/t5/Ethernet-Products/I210-dropping-all-network-packets-send-from-NC-SI-over-MCTP/m-p/1495115#M33504

NC-SI specification: https://www.dmtf.org/documents/pmci/network-controller-sideband-interface-nc-si-specification-100

[Diego_INTEL]

Hello @EmielBrink,

Just a little update, have you tried transmitting with less speed? You are trying with 1000 Mb/s, could you limit the speed to 100 Mb/s and try again please?

There is this document that I was checking, at chapter 4-5, mentions the loss in packets at 1000 Mb/s, just to discard, it may worth to try with less speed to see if the issue is with the commands or with the performance of NC-SI.

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/content-details/612637/network-controller-sideband-interface-nc-si-overview-and-performance.html?wapkw=nc-si&DocID=612637

Let me know how it goes please.

Best regards,

@Diego_INTEL 

[EmielBrink]

Hello @Diego_INTEL,

I've read the document linked in your message. To clarify, the issue I am having is not packet loss due to transmission speeds. I can receive certain types of packets from the Sideband Interface fine without any packet loss. I can also send and receive NC-SI commands over the sideband interface. Also do keep in mind we are using NC-SI over MCTP over SMBus.

The issue is with the Sideband Interface configuration within the I210: All Ethernet packets send from the Management Controller to the I210 over the Sideband Interface get dropped by the I210's internal filtering (I suspect MAC filtering, since that should be the only type of filtering applied to outbound packets). I've verified this using the "Get NC-SI Pass-through Statistics command" from the NC-SI specification, which accurately shows the number of packets send from the MC in the "packets dropped" counter.

I hope this clarifies the situation.

Kind regards,

Emiel