how to troubleshoot a network adapter on an AIX 4.3.3 machine

Question

I'm trying to brush up my skills on AIX. I have an ancient RS/6000 43P-133 which I'm trying to resurrect before investing in anything more sophisticated. I used to do automation and scripting on AIX systems, but very little administration.

The onboard PCI network adapter does not work. It may be dead, not sure.

The diagnostics screens (SMS) reports "ok" for the adapter.

On startup, the error:

if_en: ns_alloc(en0) failed with errno = 19

is produced

• lsdev shows ent0 as "Defined"
• errpt shows adapter errors
• errpt -j shows KENT_EEPROM_ERR for ent0
• en0 and et0 seem to be defined
• /dev/ent0 /dev/en0 and /dev/et0 do not exist (Am I just too Linux?)
• alog -o -t boot shows:

.

attempting to configure device 'ent0'
Time:  16     LEDS: 0x742
invoking /usr/lib/methods/cfgkent -2 -l ent0
Number of running methods: 1
-------------
Completed method for: ent0, Elapsed time = 0
return code = 40
*************** no stdout ***************
*************** no stderr ***************
Method error  (/usr/lib/methods/cfgkent -2 -l ent0 ):
           0514-040 Error initializing a device into the kernel.

When I try to bring up the interface using smitty communications

en0
aix
inet0 changed
Method error (/usr/lib/methods/chgif):
    0514-068 Cause not known.
0821-510 ifconfig: error calling entry point for /usr/lib/drivers/if_en: The specified device does not exist.
0821-223 chgif: Cannot get records from CuAt.
...

Are there any other tools or utilities which might provide insight as to where the problem might be? Is there something missing in my troubleshooting?

The primary objective here is to learn more about AIX, so even if you don't know the answer, tips on troubleshooting would be much appreciated.

---

Some more outputs:

# lscfg -vpl ent0
  DEVICE            LOCATION          DESCRIPTION

  ent0              04-D0             IBM PCI Ethernet Adapter (22100020)
# lslpp -L | grep 22100020
  devices.pci.22100020.diag  4.3.3.0    C    PCI Ethernet Adapter Diagnostics
  devices.pci.22100020.rte   4.3.3.0    C    IBM PCI Ethernet Adapter

Answer 1

first, try reseat the card

next check if you have the correct driver installed

# lscfg -vpl ent0 

should display something like this

ent0 U0.1-P2-I1/E1 Gigabit Ethernet-SX PCI-X Adapter (14106802) 

Gigabit Ethernet-SX PCI-X Adapter: 
Part Number.................00P3055 
FRU Number..................00P3055 
EC Level....................H11634A 
Manufacture ID..............YL1021 
Network Address.............000255330878 
ROM Level.(alterable).......GOL001 
Device Specific.(YL)........U0.1-P2-I1/E1 


PLATFORM SPECIFIC 

Name: ethernet 
Node: ethernet@1 
Device Type: network 
Physical Location: U0.1-P2-I1/E1 

then run

# lslpp -L | grep 14106802 (get this number from the first line in the previous cmd)

let me know the outputs from the above commands and if you're missing the filesets then i can help you install them