[dpdk-dev] Link status issue with i40e firmware 7.0x

[David Marchand <david.marchand@redhat.com>]

Hello,

We recently upgraded a XXV710 nic on a Dell R740 server (running RHEL
7.7) to firmware version 7.00.

# ethtool -i enp59s0f0
driver: i40e
version: 2.8.10-k
firmware-version: 7.00 0x80004cf8 1.2154.0
expansion-rom-version:
bus-info: 0000:3b:00.0
supports-statistics: yes
supports-test: yes
supports-eeprom-access: yes
supports-register-dump: yes
supports-priv-flags: yes


Following this upgrade, using the nic with dpdk only works once.
Restarting testpmd (dpdk 18.11.2) ends up with all ports reporting
that link is down, and indeed, the other side of the cable reports
that there is no light.

I tried with the 19.11-rc1 tag, same behavior.

To restore connectivity, the workaround is to unbind the device from
vfio-pci, bind it again to the i40e kernel driver, and bind it back to
vfio-pci.


We noticed a question on Intel forum:
https://forums.intel.com/s/question/0D50P00004OjvP2SAJ/xxv7102-how-to-rollbackdowngrade-firmware-to-version-601-from-version-700
But no public solution in this forum.


We are trying to downgrade the firmware to version 6.8x or 6.0x but so
far, we did not manage to do this downgrade.


Any help appreciated.

Thanks.

-- 
David Marchand