Vladimir Oltean [off-list ref] writes:

As a way to fix a bug quickly and get correct behavior, I guess there's
also the option of stopping to process multicast packets in hardware,
and configure the switch to always send any multicast to the CPU port
only.

I don't think that's an option.  The CPU is dimensioned for switch
management. For the RTL838x, using the current ethernet driver, it tends
to break down completely at 30-40 Mbits/s.

Multicast offloading is necessary to be able to use one of these devices
for e.g IPTV.  Which definitely is a relevant use case.


Bjørn