Topic: I made a driver disk for r8169: want it?

[kevbo]

Hello all.

I'm trying to install SMEServer 7.3 on a motherboard that has a realtek 8111 onboard.  According to this link:

http://wiki.centos.org/HardwareList/RealTekRTL8111b

there are issues with that chip and all shipping versions of CentOS 4.x.  The driver disks provided there do not work with SMEServer 7.3 as it doesn't ship with the same kernel version of CentOS 4.6.

I have a CentOS 4.6 box running, so I compiled the driver with the right version of kernel-devel and hacked it into the disk.  I've just done an NFS install of SMEServer 4.6 using my driver disk.

I'm offering this disk to you.  Is there anyone/anyplace I could send it so it could be included on the web site?

I'll also be compiling the driver for the current kernel (as opposed to the installer kernel).  An suggestions as to how to package it up so that it would be useful would be taken, and I'll try to do it.  (I can make RPMs, but I don't know how useful an RPM that installs a file into /lib/modules/kernel_ver actually is.)

The web page above mentions using dkms: has SME given any thought to using dkms?

Kevin

[byte]

The driver disks provided there do not work with SMEServer 7.3 as it doesn't ship with the same kernel version of CentOS 4.6.

SME Server 7.3 does have the same kernel version as CentOS 4.6 as we pull the kernel from upstream i.e CentOS

[kevbo]

Not exactly.

CentOS 4.6 shipped with kernel-2.6.9-67.EL.  SMEServer 7.3 shipped with kernel-2.6.9-67.0.1.EL.  For driver disks, they have to match exactly.  Those don't.

That being said, the driver disks provided at the link in the parent don't actually have the driver for CentOS 4.6 anyways, so even if you did have exactly the same kernel version, the driver disk wasn't available.

[tonsum]

Hi !

Well I'm desperately looking for a solution for my realtek 8111 chip and I would gladly try out your compiled driver. I have failed to compile it on my SME 7.3 probably due to a wrong kerenl-devel matching.
 

[kevbo]

The driver disk I have is only used on initial install, if you're trying to do an NFS or FTP install.  If you already have the system running, you don't really need it.

What kernel are you running?  I have the driver compiled for the default kernel as well as the "yum update"d one.  I actually found compiling the driver to be painless: make sure you have kernel-devel installed, then grab the tarball from realtek, and make.  It was easy.

Now, if you install SME, then do "yum install kernel-devel", you'll get the newest kernel-devel, but if you haven't run "yum update" yet, you won't be running the newest kernel.  Is that what you did?  Can you run a yum-update?

I can get you either driver.

[tonsum]

Hi !

OK

My current system looks like this, don't ask me why. 

[root@server ~]# uname -r
2.6.9-67.0.7.EL
[root@server ~]# rpm -qa |grep kernel-devel
kernel-devel-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL
warning: only V3 signatures can be verified, skipping V4 signature

I'm still interested.

[kevbo]

Yeah, as I suspected, your currently running kernel is older than your kernel-devel package.  Can you do a yum update?  Or can you grab the kernel-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL rpm by hand and install it?  Then, the driver you make from the tarball will work.

I actually had that problem.  Installed the kernel-devel module and got the wrong versioned one...

If you actually do get the right driver on your machine for 2.6.9-67.0.7.EL, it will end up breaking again when you do a yum update and get kernel-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL onto the box, which is why I'm suggesting you get up to kernel-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL in the first place, since 2.6.9-67.0.7.EL is temporary.

I've made a tarball with the 4 drivers (EL and ELsmp for 2.6.9-67.0.7 and 2.6.9-67.0.15).  I'll see if I can figure out a way to get it to you.

[tonsum]

I've tried yum update by it does not result in a newer matching kernel so I will try to find the rpm package mathing the kernel-devel-2.6.9-67.0.15.EL.

Since this chip is quit common on ASUS motherboards, I would suspect that there is a demand for this driver.

Thanks

[shawnbishop]

I am having the same problems, I have followed the following link

http://forums.clarkconnect.com/showflat.php?Number=111742

But SME doesnt have the /etc/modprobe.d, and I ma not sure how to blacklist the old r8169 driver

So I did the following...

# yum install kernel-devel gcc

Download the source from the realtek website

http://www.realtek.com.tw/downloads/downloadsView.aspx?Langid=1&PNid=5&PFid=5&Level=5&Conn=4&DownTypeID=3

remove the module causing the problem

# lsmod | grep r8169
# rmmod r8169

Download and extract the realtek driver

# cd /usr/src
# tar xjvf realtek-driver.tar.bz
# cd realtek-driver
# make clean
# make clean modules
# make install

Rename the old drive

# mv /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/r8169.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/r8169.ko.bak

Unload the old driver

# rmmod r8169

Load the new module

# depmod -a
# modprobe r8168

Check the /etc/modprobe.conf file for a line entry like: alias eth0 r8169 and edit the line.
You might want to comment out the existing alias line and create a new line entry, example;
#alias eth0 r8169
alias eth0 r8168

# signal-event ppost-upgrade; signal-event reboot

The module should be visible from the console mode when you reconfigure the server

[holck]

I have bought a machine with an on-board ethernet interface:

Code: [Select]

                description: Ethernet interface
                product: RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller
                vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
                physical id: 0
                bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
                logical name: eth0
                version: 02
and an extra net card:

Code: [Select]

                description: Ethernet interface
                product: RTL-8169 Gigabit Ethernet
                vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
                physical id: 0
                bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
                logical name: eth1
                version: 10
The on-board interface is having problems:

Code: [Select]

          RX packets:29913 errors:0 dropped:2614813787 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:26117 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
Now my question is - can I run the two driver modules in parallel? Do

Code: [Select]

modprobe r8168 and have something like this in /etc/modprobe.conf:

Code: [Select]

alias eth0 r8168
alias eth1 r8169