Netgear WNDA3100 Wireless-N Dual Band Adapter, host windows 7 professional 64 bit, guest Fedora core 11 32-bit

[RichardKinder]

Hi all,

Long winded problem, unsure where to start debugging.

Situation is that I have a single VM, created under XP pro, 32-bit, guest is fedora core 11. Workstation 7.0.0 build-203739

I then transferred this VM across to the Windows 7 Pro 64-bit host. The guest FC11 install still works fine (had to tweak the networking a little, but all is good now).

I then tried to install the WNDA3100 adapter in the FC11 guest on the W7 host, but get freezes of up to 60 seconds (as the firmware is downloaded onto the WNDA3100 card). This eventually times out and I get all sorts of kernel tracebacks and other nastiness.

I went back to the original host (32-bit XP pro) and installed the WNDA3100 adapter in the same FC11 guest, and it works fine.

This would tend to suggest that the Windows 7 host, OR the hardware on the Windows 7 host (or possibly some 64-bit issue) is causing issues.

Where do I start to debug this? What log files or debugging options are available in VMWare to help work through this problem? I'll also be playing around with the FC11 drivers to try and work out why the device is freezing (/not downloading the firmware), but I need some pointers for the host side of debugging.

I have downloaded and built the latest kernel wireless drivers, but the end result is exactly the same on the W7 64-bit host - long freeze followed by failure.

Here is the output from dmesg on the guest FC11 install on the W7 64-bit host:

usbcore: registered new interface driver ar9170usb

usbcore: deregistering interface driver ar9170usb

usb 1-1: USB disconnect, address 3

usb 1-1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4

usb 1-1: New USB device found, idVendor=0846, idProduct=9010

usb 1-1: New USB device strings: Mfr=16, Product=32, SerialNumber=48

usb 1-1: Product: USB2.0 WLAN

usb 1-1: Manufacturer: ATHER

usb 1-1: SerialNumber: 12345

usb 1-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

cfg80211: Calling CRDA to update world regulatory domain

cfg80211: World regulatory domain updated:

(start_freq - end_freq @ bandwidth), (max_antenna_gain, max_eirp)

(2402000 KHz - 2472000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)

(2457000 KHz - 2482000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)

(2474000 KHz - 2494000 KHz @ 20000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)

(5170000 KHz - 5250000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)

(5735000 KHz - 5835000 KHz @ 40000 KHz), (300 mBi, 2000 mBm)

usb 1-1: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4

usb 1-1: firmware: requesting ar9170-1.fw

usb 1-1: file with init values not found.

ar9170usb: probe of 1-1:1.0 failed with error -2

usbcore: registered new interface driver ar9170usb

usbcore: deregistering interface driver ar9170usb

usb 1-1: reset high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 4

usb 1-1: firmware: requesting ar9170-1.fw

usb 1-1: firmware: requesting ar9170-2.fw

BUG: soft lockup - CPU#0 stuck for 61s! [Xorg:1830]

Modules linked in: ar9170usb(+) mac80211 cfg80211 fuse sco bridge stp llc bnep l2cap bluetooth sunrpc ipv6 vmblock vsock vmci vmxnet vmmemctl vmhgfs pvscsi dm_multipath uinput snd_ens1371 gameport snd_rawmidi snd_seq_device snd_ac97_codec ac97_bus snd_pcm snd_timer snd pcnet32 soundcore snd_page_alloc ppdev i2c_piix4 mii parport_pc i2c_core parport pcspkr floppy mptspi mptscsih mptbase scsi_transport_spi

Pid: 1830, comm: Xorg Not tainted (2.6.30.9-96.fc11.i586 #1) VMware Virtual Platform

EIP: 0060:[<c072c555>] EFLAGS: 00203286 CPU: 0

EIP is at spinunlock_irqrestore+0xf/0x15

EAX: 00203286 EBX: f6fe3f1d ECX: 00203286 EDX: 00203286

ESI: 00000015 EDI: f6fe3f40 EBP: e934fe48 ESP: e934fe48

DS: 007b ES: 007b FS: 00d8 GS: 0033 SS: 0068

CR0: 80050033 CR2: b789b164 CR3: 364b7000 CR4: 000006d0

DR0: 00000000 DR1: 00000000 DR2: 00000000 DR3: 00000000

DR6: ffff0ff0 DR7: 00000400

Call Trace:

i8042_interrupt+0x8d/0x1ed

handle_IRQ_event+0x57/0xfd

handle_edge_irq+0xb5/0xf5

handle_irq+0x40/0x4b

do_IRQ+0x46/0x87

common_interrupt+0x29/0x30

? spinunlock_irqrestore+0xf/0x15

pcnet32_watchdog+0x2e/0x4f

? pcnet32_watchdog+0x0/0x4f

run_timer_softirq+0x142/0x1a6

? pcnet32_watchdog+0x0/0x4f

__do_softirq+0x94/0x139

do_softirq+0x36/0x41

irq_exit+0x2e/0x5c

smp_apic_timer_interrupt+0x6d/0x7b

apic_timer_interrupt+0x2a/0x30

usb 1-1: firmware part 1 upload failed (-110).

usb 1-1: device is in a bad state. please reconnect it!

usb 1-1: kill pending tx urbs.

ar9170usb: probe of 1-1:1.0 failed with error -110

usbcore: registered new interface driver ar9170usb

usb 1-1: USB disconnect, address 4

Any help with starting my investigations/debugging greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Richard

[RichardKinder]

Another data point - installing fresh 64-bit ubuntu on the same windows 7 host results in similar problems. The NIC still isn't configured correctly.

[cdc1]

Something that doesn't make sense to me is why you are installing a driver for a host-side network adapter inside a guest OS. (Mainly because the USB stuff has caused people nothing but issues such as the one you're experiencing. Personally, I limit the USB functionality in VMware Workstation to only attaching external USB drives to a guest. A communications device is best left at the host layer.)

Don't even bother connecting it to the guest as a USB device. You should be able to get network access on your guest working through a virtual NIC that uses that same adapter, but on the host side as opposed to inside the guest, without the need to do what you're doing (assuming that I'm understanding correctly what it is that you're doing.)

Message was edited by: cdc

[RichardKinder]

Yes, this card is USB. The reason I'm not just using it on the host OS as a virtual adapter is I want to use it for wireless sniffing (incl. 802.11 mgmt/ctrl frames). This works fine on 32-bit XP Workstation 7.0 with the same Fedora core 11 VM, just doesn't want to work on the Windows 7 64-bit machine.