IRQ problem with sundance card on Checkpoint firewall

hi everybody,

I've got a problem with a checkpoint firewall on a DELL GX270 box, the
problem is the D-Link Sundance Quad Ethernet card. After some time it
seems to switch IRQ's from a lower range (3-11) to a higher (12-19)
one, which gets the firewall to not work any longer. The OS is based on
kernel 2.4.21-20cp. I've tried "ifconfig eth1 irq 0x" to change the IRQ
manually, but that didn't work i get an error message like "SIOCSIFMAP:
Operation not supported". So my questions are:

How can I change the IRQ's of the interfaces manually, is there any
configfile or something like it?
What could be cause oft the IRQ change?

Thanks in Advance,
Pascal Bättig

Re: IRQ problem with sundance card on Checkpoint firewall

On 25 Oct 2006, in the Usenet newsgroup comp.security.firewalls, in article
<1161844433.382692.39090@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, steppen.wolf wrote:

>I've got a problem with a checkpoint firewall on a DELL GX270 box, the
>problem is the D-Link Sundance Quad Ethernet card.

Presumably a DFE-580TX

>After some time it seems to switch IRQ's from a lower range (3-11) to a
>higher (12-19) one, which gets the firewall to not work any longer. The
>OS is based on kernel 2.4.21-20cp.

When does this occur. At boot? _While_ the system is running? When you
say it switches IRQ, are you referring to the IRQ that the hardware is
using, or the IRQ that the kernel is using? I'm assuming that the
hardware is moving at boot. That's a BIOS problem. Otherwise, see below.

>I've tried "ifconfig eth1 irq 0x" to change the IRQ manually, but that
>didn't work i get an error message like "SIOCSIFMAP: Operation not
>supported".

That option isn't part of any modern NIC driver.

>How can I change the IRQ's of the interfaces manually, is there any
>configfile or something like it?

That's a PCI card. The PCI connector has four pins for interrupts,
labeled "Interrupt A" through "Interrupt D" (pin A6, B7, A7, B8
respectively). Which actual interrupt _number_ that these pins lead to
is determined by the BIOS setup.

>What could be cause oft the IRQ change?

Normally, this is a function of the BIOS setup, and may change as a
function of adding/removing or moving hardware. _OTHER_THAN_THAT_ the
hardware configurations shouldn't be changing.

If on the other hand, the IRQ that the kernel is looking at is changing
(you'd see this by looking at /proc/irq or the kernel boot messages that
normally go to /var/log/messages), then you want to see if you have some
wonderful "helper" program, such as 'kudzu' running at boot. That piece of
crap is a "tool" to detect hardware changes. If you aren't changing the
hardware, you may want to disable it (or simply remove it).

You may want to check the Dell mailing lists - they actually have some
people there who support Linux. You are posting from a search engine
called google - so search 'lists.us.dell.com' though that is a Dell
mailing list, and you'd have to _subscribe_ to the _Dell_ mailing list
(not the google mirror) to be able to post to it.

Old guy