Analyzing dropped packets
Bright minds, I have a brand new server (IBM x3850 M2) that exhibits a problem of dropping packets. Dropped packet are accumulating throughout the day. eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1A:64:DB:E4:26 inet addr:132.77.4.105 Bcast:132.77.5.255 Mask:255.255.254.0 UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 RX packets:689587830 errors:2600 dropped:2916 overruns:0 frame:2600 TX packets:907757124 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 RX bytes:545358022289 (520093.9 Mb) TX bytes:1039725325872 (991559.3 Mb) Interrupt:98 Memory:f400-f4012100 I need your advice on how to approach this problem. What tools/methods are out there to deal with problem like this? I don't have direct access to the switches, even though I can ask our network people to verify/check specific things on their side. System details: SLES 10 SP2 (2.6.16.60-0.21-smp #1 SMP Tue May 6 12:41:02 UTC 2008 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux) Ethernet hardware: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM5709 Gigabit Ethernet driver (stock SLES10 SP2 driver): # modinfo bnx2 filename: /lib/modules/2.6.16.60-0.21-smp/kernel/drivers/net/bnx2.ko version:1.6.7c license:GPL description:Broadcom NetXtreme II BCM5706/5708 Driver author: Michael Chan srcversion: D41ADC8BC49443A4DAE505E alias: pci:v14E4d163Asv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v14E4d1639sv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v14E4d16ACsv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v14E4d16AAsv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v14E4d16AAsv103Csd3102bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v14E4d164Csv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v14E4d164Asv*sd*bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v14E4d164Asv103Csd3106bc*sc*i* alias: pci:v14E4d164Asv103Csd3101bc*sc*i* depends: supported: yes vermagic: 2.6.16.60-0.21-smp SMP gcc-4.1 parm: disable_msi:Disable Message Signaled Interrupt (MSI) (int) -- Warm regards, Michael Green ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Analyzing dropped packets
2009/3/11 Michael Green : > Bright minds, > > I have a brand new server (IBM x3850 M2) that exhibits a problem of > dropping packets. Dropped packet are accumulating throughout the day. > > eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1A:64:DB:E4:26 > inet addr:132.77.4.105 Bcast:132.77.5.255 Mask:255.255.254.0 > UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 > RX packets:689587830 errors:2600 dropped:2916 overruns:0 frame:2600 > TX packets:907757124 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 > collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 > RX bytes:545358022289 (520093.9 Mb) TX bytes:1039725325872 > (991559.3 Mb) > Interrupt:98 Memory:f400-f4012100 > > I need your advice on how to approach this problem. What tools/methods > are out there to deal with problem like this? > I don't have direct access to the switches, even though I can ask our > network people to verify/check specific things on their side. I'll start from checking speed settings/status on both sides. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: DNS is driving me crazy
2009/3/10 Herouth Maoz : > On 10/03/2009, at 21:33, Oren Held wrote: > > On Tuesday, 10 March 2009 17:50:18 Herouth Maoz wrote: > > Quoting Gabor Szabo : > > www 3600 IN CNAME s5.hostlocal.com > > szabgab.com 3600 IN CNAME s5.hostlocal.com > > @ 3600 IN MX 10 s6.hostlocal.com. > > > Is that how it should be? With the trailing . on the MS record ? > > dig �...@ns44.domaincontrol.com szabgab.com MX > > does not seem to show me any MX record > > Well, I'm not exactly an expert, but your MX record certainly isn't > > propagated - I think the above definition must be wrong. Why does it > > say "@" where it's supposed to say mail.szabgab.com? > > Wrong, instead of the "@" should be szabgab.com and not mail.szabgab.com - > because he wants u...@szabgab.com mail addresses. > > Ah, right, I guess. The following confused me: > > I'd like to have www.szabgab.com and szabgab.com to resolve to > s5.hostlocal.com while > mail.szabgab.com to resolve to s6.hostlocal.com and that all mail sent to > @szabgab.com should be processed by s6.hostlocal.com > > So actually there is no need to define mail.szabgab.com at all - unless he > wants to make it a cname for some protocol other than SMTP. > Herouth As it turns out there I had szabgab.com configured as CNAME so no matter what did I do with the MX record it was not taken into account. I changed now and I have set it up as an A record pointing to the s5 machine @ 3600IN A 207.158.15.132 mail is a CNAME pointing to s6, though I only use it for http access for my mailing lists: http://mail.szabgab.com/ mail3600IN CNAME s6.hostlocal.com And the MX record looks like this: szabgab.com.3600IN MX 0 s6.hostlocal.com. This works now but it means I'll have more work every time I need to move server and the DNS interface of Godaddy is so slow! Anyway, thanks for the suggestions, it pointed me to the right direction. Gabor ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Analyzing dropped packets
What is the server used for? What traffic is comming into the server (small packets? full MTU?)? at what rate? How many RX descriptors is your driver set for? Do you have 802.3X flow control enabled (both ends)? Do you see any abnormal CPU usage when the packet drops occur? But more fundementally, why are you even concerned with 2916/689587830 packet drops? On most scenarious, this is pretty normal behaviour. i would be more curious why there are 2900 errors :) Aviv On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 10:40, Vitaly wrote: > 2009/3/11 Michael Green : >> Bright minds, >> >> I have a brand new server (IBM x3850 M2) that exhibits a problem of >> dropping packets. Dropped packet are accumulating throughout the day. >> >> eth1 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:1A:64:DB:E4:26 >> inet addr:132.77.4.105 Bcast:132.77.5.255 Mask:255.255.254.0 >> UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1 >> RX packets:689587830 errors:2600 dropped:2916 overruns:0 frame:2600 >> TX packets:907757124 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0 >> collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000 >> RX bytes:545358022289 (520093.9 Mb) TX bytes:1039725325872 >> (991559.3 Mb) >> Interrupt:98 Memory:f400-f4012100 >> >> I need your advice on how to approach this problem. What tools/methods >> are out there to deal with problem like this? >> I don't have direct access to the switches, even though I can ask our >> network people to verify/check specific things on their side. > > > I'll start from checking speed settings/status on both sides. > > ___ > Linux-il mailing list > Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il > http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il > -- Ted Turner - "Sports is like a war without the killing." ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Thanks for a Wonderful Tel Aviv FOSS Club Meeting
I want to thank all who have come to the lecture. I was happy to see that many people already have knowledge on private satellite and even some are already using it with Linux. I also want to Thank shlomi for organizing this (and all other) Telux club meeting(s). cheers, erez. shlomi, btw: I've already sent you the presentation. tell me if you didn't get it and I'll resend. On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 6:33 PM, Shlomi Fish wrote: > Hi all! > > Yesterday Erez (Doron) gave a talk to Telux about receiving Private > Satellite > Television on Linux. The talk was very interesting, and I found it > especially > encouraging that many people came to hear the talk and the room was at > least > half-full. I'd like to thank Erez for volunteering to give a presentation, > and > all the people who attended the meeting and made it such a success. Some of > them asked questions or made insightful comments throughout the > presentation, > which made it even more interesting. > > Some of us went to a nearby café after the meeting - so thanks to all of > those > who went there. I'll put the presentation slides on the club's website as > soon > as Erez sends them to me, but you really should listen to him giving the > presentation if you're interested in learning more about this subject. > > The club homepage is: > > http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/telux/ > > We don't have anything scheduled for now, so if you have an interesting > subject, we'd love to hear you present it. Note that the presentation can > only > last an hour because it starts at 18:30 and we have to evacuate the class > at > 19:45. > > Maybe I'll hack something two weeks from now. Possible options are: > > 1. Some short presentations, possibly including a Tel Aviv-based re-run of > the > "There are too many ways to do it" talk that I had already given to the > Jerusalem Perl Mongers. > > 2. I can try to convince Lisha to give her Emacs presentation again, this > time > while being better prepared. > > 3. Maybe Gabor would like to give a presentation about wxWidgets/wxPerl > programming (this time without Padre). > > 4. Can someone give a presentation about NIS/NFS administration in Linux? > There was some interest for it during the Welcome-to-Linux series. > > 5. Other suggestions will be appreciated. > > Regards, > >Shlomi Fish > > -- > - > Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ > Parody on "The Fountainhead" - http://xrl.us/bjria > > I'm not interested in what you're doing; what are you trying to > achieve? > mauke: I'm trying to achieve world peace and this regex is > the last thing standing in my way! ;) > > > ___ > Linux-il mailing list > Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il > http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il > ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Analyzing dropped packets
On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 11:36 AM, Aviv Greenberg wrote: > What is the server used for? What traffic is comming into the server > (small packets? full MTU?)? at what rate? How many RX descriptors is > your driver set for? Do you have 802.3X flow control enabled (both > ends)? Do you see any abnormal CPU usage when the packet drops occur? > I'm not quite sure how to check out all these things... The server is doing backups. Naturally most of the traffic happens during night hours. > But more fundementally, why are you even concerned with 2916/689587830 > packet drops? On most scenarious, this is pretty normal behaviour. > I'm concerned because occasionally the backup application shuts its TCP port on which it listens. It seems to happen after a considerable amount of drops/errors have accumulated on the interface. The only way out then is to recycle the app. I suspect that these errors might be the indication of the problem that causes abnormal application behavior. > i would be more curious why there are 2900 errors :) > I realize there might be a million different reasons for these errors. How can I investigate them? ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Analyzing dropped packets
I'm not in the infrustructure team, so to me it looks ok. Are frame errors usually suggest a problem on the physical layer? -- Warm regards, Michael Green On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 2:48 PM, wrote: > Actually, there are 2k frame errors. Is your physical onfrastructute ok? > Cables, ports, shieldingd? > M > > ---MAV > Marc. Volovic > +972-54-467-6764 > m...@swiftouch.com ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Analyzing dropped packets
On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 13:49, Michael Green wrote: > On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 11:36 AM, Aviv Greenberg wrote: >> What is the server used for? What traffic is comming into the server >> (small packets? full MTU?)? at what rate? How many RX descriptors is >> your driver set for? Do you have 802.3X flow control enabled (both >> ends)? Do you see any abnormal CPU usage when the packet drops occur? >> > > I'm not quite sure how to check out all these things... Mainly using ethtool - read the man page > > The server is doing backups. Naturally most of the traffic happens > during night hours. > > >> But more fundementally, why are you even concerned with 2916/689587830 >> packet drops? On most scenarious, this is pretty normal behaviour. >> > I'm concerned because occasionally the backup application shuts its > TCP port on which it listens. It seems to happen after a considerable > amount of drops/errors have accumulated on the interface. The only way > out then is to recycle the app. I suspect that these errors might be > the indication of the problem that causes abnormal application > behavior. > > >> i would be more curious why there are 2900 errors :) >> > > I realize there might be a million different reasons for these errors. > How can I investigate them? 1. Use ethtool to set and query device settings 2. Use ethtool -S and netstat -s to get error statistics 3. Use dmesg to see if there were any errors printed by the device (hangs, watchdog messages, etc) > > ___ > Linux-il mailing list > Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il > http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il > -- Bob Hope - "Middle age is when your age starts to show around your middle." ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: I'm Looking for a Job
> I'm looking for a job, as a programmer, QA engineer, system administrator, > etc. You can find my Resumé online here: > Hello Shlomi. I cannot hire you, but I have been offering Code for Beer and if you are interested in learning some KDE technology in the meantime I have two outstanding bugs that I really need solved: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=72926 https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=159251 Any amount of money that I could offer would be insulting so I won't, but I would happily treat you to your favorite brew if you want to work on these. Thanks. -- Dotan Cohen http://what-is-what.com http://gibberish.co.il א-ב-ג-ד-ה-ו-ז-ח-ט-י-ך-כ-ל-ם-מ-ן-נ-ס-ע-ף-פ-ץ-צ-ק-ר-ש-ת ا-ب-ت-ث-ج-ح-خ-د-ذ-ر-ز-س-ش-ص-ض-ط-ظ-ع-غ-ف-ق-ك-ل-م-ن-ه-و-ي А-Б-В-Г-Д-Е-Ё-Ж-З-И-Й-К-Л-М-Н-О-П-Р-С-Т-У-Ф-Х-Ц-Ч-Ш-Щ-Ъ-Ы-Ь-Э-Ю-Я а-б-в-г-д-е-ё-ж-з-и-й-к-л-м-н-о-п-р-с-т-у-ф-х-ц-ч-ш-щ-ъ-ы-ь-э-ю-я ä-ö-ü-ß-Ä-Ö-Ü ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: I'm Looking for a Job
On Wednesday 11 March 2009 16:16:49 Dotan Cohen wrote: > > I'm looking for a job, as a programmer, QA engineer, system > > administrator, etc. You can find my Resumé online here: > > Hello Shlomi. I cannot hire you, but I have been offering Code for > Beer and if you are interested in learning some KDE technology in the > meantime I have two outstanding bugs that I really need solved: > https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=72926 > https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=159251 I might take a look. > > Any amount of money that I could offer would be insulting so I won't, > but I would happily treat you to your favorite brew if you want to > work on these. I don't drink beer, or any alcoholic beverages. But a beer's worth of food (Pizza, etc.) would be appreciated. Regards, Shlomi Fish -- - Shlomi Fish http://www.shlomifish.org/ What does "Zionism" mean? - http://xrl.us/bjn8u God gave us two eyes and ten fingers so we will type five times as much as we read. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: I'm Looking for a Job
> I might take a look. Excellent! > I don't drink beer, or any alcoholic beverages. But a beer's worth of food > (Pizza, etc.) would be appreciated. > Of course! Actually, if you find yourself in the Haifa (Nesher) area, there are two little girls who would invite you to a pizza and colas here at our place! -- Dotan Cohen http://what-is-what.com http://gibberish.co.il א-ב-ג-ד-ה-ו-ז-ח-ט-י-ך-כ-ל-ם-מ-ן-נ-ס-ע-ף-פ-ץ-צ-ק-ר-ש-ת ا-ب-ت-ث-ج-ح-خ-د-ذ-ر-ز-س-ش-ص-ض-ط-ظ-ع-غ-ف-ق-ك-ل-م-ن-ه-و-ي А-Б-В-Г-Д-Е-Ё-Ж-З-И-Й-К-Л-М-Н-О-П-Р-С-Т-У-Ф-Х-Ц-Ч-Ш-Щ-Ъ-Ы-Ь-Э-Ю-Я а-б-в-г-д-е-ё-ж-з-и-й-к-л-м-н-о-п-р-с-т-у-ф-х-ц-ч-ш-щ-ъ-ы-ь-э-ю-я ä-ö-ü-ß-Ä-Ö-Ü ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
kchmviewer problem - correct contents page , but any other page are inaccessible
Hi all, I am trying to open .chm book and kchmviewer correctly displays contents page but then produces the following error: /An error occurred while loading ms-its:/tmp/kde-ttt/arklouxQz/Learning JavaScript, 2nd Edition.chm::/Cover.html: The file or folder ms-its:/tmp/kde-tt/arklouxQz/Learning JavaScript, 2nd Edition.chm::/Cover.html does not exist/. The length of the archive seems normal, and I succesfully made file export to of the book to html files using kchmviewr file operations menu. How to make this book normal ??? ThanX L. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: kchmviewer problem - correct contents page , but any other page are inaccessible
I use Xchm and Gnochm to open the .chm files that I wrote and placed on my webpage. http:/moshe.lee.co.il My distro is Mandriva 2009.0 Gnome Desktop. Moshe --- On Wed, 11/3/09, Lev Olshvang wrote: From: Lev Olshvang Subject: kchmviewer problem - correct contents page , but any other page are inaccessible To: "linux-il" Date: Wednesday, 11 March, 2009, 8:20 PM Hi all, I am trying to open .chm book and kchmviewer correctly displays contents page but then produces the following error: /An error occurred while loading ms-its:/tmp/kde-ttt/arklouxQz/Learning JavaScript, 2nd Edition.chm::/Cover.html: The file or folder ms-its:/tmp/kde-tt/arklouxQz/Learning JavaScript, 2nd Edition.chm::/Cover.html does not exist/. The length of the archive seems normal, and I succesfully made file export to of the book to html files using kchmviewr file operations menu. How to make this book normal ??? ThanX L. ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Analyzing dropped packets
2009/3/11 Michael Green : > I'm not in the infrustructure team, so to me it looks ok. > Are frame errors usually suggest a problem on the physical layer? I'm not an expert when it comes to hardware but as far as my experience goes - *any* errors indicate a physical layer problems - nic, cable, connector, shield, exceeding the ethernet spec (e.g. too many bridges, long cables), wrong cable (e.g. CAT 5 cable used for Gigabit (yes I know Wikipedia says some variant can be used for Gigabit but I just stick to CAT 6)), electric interference etc. Error count should be 0. Hope this helps, --Amos ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: I'm Looking for a Job
2009/3/12 Shlomi Fish : > I don't drink beer, or any alcoholic beverages. But a beer's worth of food > (Pizza, etc.) would be appreciated. I think you have a chance to benefit much more than some more calories in your love handles - you'll learn a new technology for your toolbox, get some exposure, and get another point to put in your resume. Good luck with your job hunting. --Amos ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Re: Analyzing dropped packets
Actually, there are 2k frame errors. Is your physical onfrastructute ok? Cables, ports, shieldingd? M ---MAV Marc. Volovic +972-54-467-6764 m...@swiftouch.com Sent from my iPhone On Mar 11, 2009, at 2:22 PM, Michael Green wrote: On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 11:36 AM, Aviv Greenberg wrote: What is the server used for? What traffic is comming into the server (small packets? full MTU?)? at what rate? How many RX descriptors is your driver set for? Do you have 802.3X flow control enabled (both ends)? Do you see any abnormal CPU usage when the packet drops occur? I'm not quite sure how to check out all these things... The server is doing backups. Naturally most of the traffic happens during night hours. But more fundementally, why are you even concerned with 2916/689587830 packet drops? On most scenarious, this is pretty normal behaviour. I'm concerned because occasionally the backup application shuts its TCP port on which it listens. It seems to happen after a considerable amount of drops/errors have accumulated on the interface. The only way out then is to recycle the app. I suspect that these errors might be the indication of the problem that causes abnormal application behavior. i would be more curious why there are 2900 errors :) I realize there might be a million different reasons for these errors. How can I investigate them? ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il ___ Linux-il mailing list Linux-il@cs.huji.ac.il http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il
Getting volume keys to work in KDE
Hi all, I tried to find an answer to this one on the net, and got only things that got me in the right direction, but not a complete answer. For the sake of documentation, here is how to get KDE to recognize your volume keys (or, for that matter, any other special key). The fact that it doesn't happen automatically is probably a bug in the keyboard layout code. I might file it there. This method works with no special processes running. It works whether kmix is running or not. It causes KDE to display visual feedback to the fact that the volume is changing. First order of business is finding out what is the keycode for your misfunctioning keys. Run "xev". A new window appears, and any message sent to that window appears in the console that ran xev. Be careful not to move your mouse or press any key other than the ones you want mapped, as the messages form very quickly. Next, with the xev window active, press the keys you want to map. Your output should look something like this: KeyPress event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x2a1, root 0x13b, subw 0x0, time 61891190, (-690,-222), root:(785,703), state 0x0, keycode 101 (keysym 0x0, NoSymbol), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 0 bytes: XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: XFilterEvent returns: False KeyRelease event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x2a1, root 0x13b, subw 0x0, time 61891190, (-690,-222), root:(785,703), state 0x0, keycode 101 (keysym 0x0, NoSymbol), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 0 bytes: XFilterEvent returns: False KeyPress event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x2a1, root 0x13b, subw 0x0, time 61892564, (-690,-222), root:(785,703), state 0x0, keycode 212 (keysym 0x0, NoSymbol), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 0 bytes: XmbLookupString gives 0 bytes: XFilterEvent returns: False KeyRelease event, serial 34, synthetic NO, window 0x2a1, root 0x13b, subw 0x0, time 61892564, (-690,-222), root:(785,703), state 0x0, keycode 212 (keysym 0x0, NoSymbol), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 0 bytes: XFilterEvent returns: False This tells me that the key for reducing the monitor's brightness has a keycode of 101, and for increasing it of 212. Record the keycodes for all keys you are interested in. Also, notice that after the keycode you get, in brackets, "keysym 0x0, NoSymbol". This indicates that the keyboard mapping does not know what this key means. If the key is defined, you output should look something like: KeyRelease event, serial 35, synthetic NO, window 0x2a1, root 0x13b, subw 0x0, time 62033566, (-65,-284), root:(1410,641), state 0x0, keycode 176 (keysym 0x1008ff13, XF86AudioRaiseVolume), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 0 bytes: XFilterEvent returns: False KeyRelease event, serial 35, synthetic NO, window 0x2a1, root 0x13b, subw 0x0, time 62035609, (-65,-284), root:(1410,641), state 0x0, keycode 174 (keysym 0x1008ff11, XF86AudioLowerVolume), same_screen YES, XLookupString gives 0 bytes: XFilterEvent returns: False This means that I have already implemented what I'm writing about here, and keycodes 174 and 176 are already mapped to the Audio down and up respectively. If that is what you get, and the symbol indeed matches the key's caption, this guide will not help you (but check out a setting called "global shortcuts" in the program that controls the relevant operation). Also, if you press the key and nothing happens, this guide is also incapable of helping you. I would recommend switching to the textual console and pressing the key. If you get a message from the kernel saying that an unknown scan code was received, the situation is still salvagable. You can tell the kernel to map the scan code to the right keycode. If junk is displayed then the situation may or may not be salvagable. It might mean that the kernel misunderstands the scan code, but it might also mean (happened to me with a Microsoft PS/2 keyboard connected through a PS/2->USB adapter) that something in the hardware munges the scan code. If nothing at all happens, it is possible that the scan code never reaches the kernel, and then there is very little anyone can do. The next order of business is to tell KDE to make a map between the key code and the proper key sym. For that, we need a list of valid key symbols. On Debian, you can find this list in /usr/share/X11/XKeysymDB. Find there the right symbol for the key. For the audio keys, these are XF86AudioLowerVolume (volume down), XF86AudioRaiseVolume (volume up) and XF86AudioMute (mute). I'm sure the rest are fairly self explanatory as well (well, not all of them. For example, XF86Display is the key that switches between monitors - not exactly trivial mapping). Last, we want the KDE startup to make these mappings (which, like I said, probably should go into the PC keyboard definition - if anyone has the volume keys boun
