82598EB Datasheet, PDF (464/596 Pages) Intel Corporation – Intel® 82598EB 10 Gigabit Ethernet Controller Datasheet

Intel^® 82598EB 10 GbE Controller - LAN Fail-Over in LAN Teaming Mode
5.3.11.1.1 Transmit Functionality
In order to transmit a packet, the BMC should issue the appropriate SMBus packet transmission
commands to 82598EB. The 82598EB will then automatically choose the transmission port.
5.3.11.1.2 Receive Functionality
When the 82598EB receives a packet from any of the teamed ports, it will notifies and forwards the
packet to the BMC.
Note:
As both ports might be active (for instance, with a valid link), packets might be received on
the currently non-active port. To avoid this, fail-over should be used only in a switched
network.
5.3.11.1.3 Port Switching (Fail-Over)
While in teaming mode, transmit traffic is always transmitted by 82598EB through only one of the ports
at any given time. The 82598EB might switch the traffic transmission between ports under any of the
following conditions:
1. The current transmitting port link is not available.
2. The preferred primary port is enabled and becomes available for transmission.
5.3.11.1.4 Device Driver Interactions
When the LAN device driver is present, the decision to switch between the two ports is done by the
device driver. When the device driver is absent, this decision is done internally by the 82598EB.
Note:
When the device driver releases teaming mode, such as when the system state changes,
82598EB reconfigures the LAN ports to teaming mode. The 82598EB accomplishes this by re-
setting the MAC address of the two ports to be the teaming address in order to re-start
teaming. This is followed by transmitting gratuitous ARP packets to notify the network of
teaming mode re-setting.
5.3.11.2 Fail-Over Configuration
Fail-over operation is configured through the fail-over register, as described in Table 5-15.
The BMC should configure this register after every initialization indication from the 82598EB (such as
after every 82598EB firmware reset). The BMC needs to use the Update Management Receive Filters
command, with parameter 0x0A, detailed in Section 5.3.10.1.6.
The different configurations available to the BMC are detailed in this section.
Note: In teaming mode, both ports should be configured with the same receive manageability filters
parameters (EEPROM sections for port 0 and port 1 should be identical).
5.3.11.2.1 Preferred Primary Port
The BMC might choose one of the network ports (LAN0 or LAN1) as a preferred primary port for packet
transmission. The 82598EB uses the preferred primary port as the transmission port each time the link
for that port is valid. For example, the 82598EB always switches back to the preferred primary port
when available.
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