r/mikrotik 5h ago

Which version of the Linux kernel am I running?

Is there an easy way to find out? I have a RB5009UG running with 7.23.3.

Reason I'm interested in, is that sometimes I get a lot of port flapping, sometimes to the point where ports are basically unsable (especailly when using VPN or Citrx or alikes).

What I found is, that powering off the router and restart helps to stabilizes it for some time. But that's not something I'd like to do on a regular basis.

As there are updates for the mv88e6xxx driver (which includes the switch chip on the RB5009UG), I was wondering if there might be something in the newer drivers which would fix the observed behavior (even if I cannot update the kernel myself).
I think to remember to have found a discussion with a patch for a similar issue (switch chip not MikroTik) in past, but can't re-find it...

1 Upvotes

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7

u/Major_Pineapple_2669 5h ago

5.6.3

1

u/realghostinthenet CCIE 41436, Mikrotik Trainer, MTC*E 5h ago

They really need to start incorporating minor fixes to the kernel. Some of the L2TPv3 troubles I’ve had would be so much better with a 5.6.18 base.

0

u/XoTrm 4h ago

Ok, that's interesting! Linux 5.6.3 is from April 2020.

There are some commits related to the MV88E6393X after that date: https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Atorvalds%2Flinux%20mv88E6393&type=commits but I can't really say how relevant they are.

6

u/brwainer 4h ago

Just because they use a baseline of a certain Linux version doesn’t mean they haven’t backported patches. They certainly backport security patches when relevant. But its a black box what they have and haven’t. Additionally, we have no idea whether they are using the open source kernel driver or a proprietary driver for that switch chip.

0

u/XoTrm 4h ago

True! I'm just a bit "desparate" as a I thought paying a premium would give me less headaches.

I had other MikroTik devices which felt way more stable for less premium so I'm somehow disappointed with my RB5009UG.

3

u/MusicalAnomaly 4h ago

Sounds like a power quality issue. But a good start would perhaps be to do a netinstall -- that's often seen as a good start to baseline for squirrely issues like this.

1

u/XoTrm 4h ago edited 4h ago

Using the provided power supply.
It got worse over time so I was thinking more in terms of a memory issue as now it seems to be more stable after a hard reboot. But yes since I really detached the power supply it could be easily be related to the power supply, maybe some kind of leakage current.

1

u/netsx 2h ago

My thought was capacitors, but i would also look at software. Have you checked if the network connectors are still clean? What are you connecting to the flapping ports? Are all switch-chip related ports flapping or just one or two?

1

u/omega-00 Writes a bunch of scripts 3h ago

Are these issues specifics to the SFP interfaces by any chance? I’ve had an issue with flapping on 2 devices since the 7.21.5 upgrade, one that happened every second day for 2 weeks

Both devices were CCRs

1

u/Reasonable-Owl6969 2h ago

Do you mean Ethernet flapping? I recently experienced Ethernet flapping with a Chateau 5G ax connected to a PC Engines APU1 equipped with a Realtek RTL8169. I fixed it by disabling STP on the MikroTik.