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Package: netcfg
Debian-installer-version: RC3, from lcs.mit.edu
uname -a:
Date: 5/11/2005 +/- 1 day
Method: RC3 CDs
Machine: H-P Vectra VL
Processor: Pentium 2
Memory: 128M
Root Device: IDE /dev/hda
Root Size/partition table:
/ 4.8 GB
/var 2.5 GB
/home 500 MB
Output of lspci: Not relevant, no problems with PCI devices
Base System Installation Checklist:
Initial boot worked: [O]
Configure network HW: [E/O]
Config network: [E/O]
Detect CD: [O]
Load installer modules: [O]
Detect hard drives: [O]
Partition hard drives: [O]
Create file systems: [O]
Mount partitions: [O]
Install base system: [O]
Install boot loader: [O]
Reboot: [O]
[O] = OK, [E] = Error (please elaborate below), [ ] = didn't try it
Comments/Problems:
This machine is configured to be a multihomed router/firewall, among
other functions. It has four Ethernet boards:
1 PCI 3C905B Combo (AUI, 10Base2, 100BaseT)
1 PCI 3C905B 100BaseT only
1 ISA-PNP 3C509 Combo (AUI, 10Base2, 100BaseT)
1 ISA-PNP SMC-Ultra Combo (AUI, 10Base2, 100BaseT)
Netcfg (as called by debian-installer) detected and configured
either PCI network board with no problems.
It didn't detect either of the ISA-PNP boards at all.
If I accidentally hit <Esc> at "Detecting network hardware", another
screen came up, in which additional driver modules were listed. Nothing in
the installer manual or the screen messages said this function exists. If I
selected one of the ISA-PNP drivers, the configuration screen came back, and
showed that network card in addition to the two PCI cards. Configuring it
appeared to take, but pinging didn't work on any of the four boards. lsmod
showed that the driver module wasn't loaded for the board that was
configured.
After installation, it was possible to get all four boards working
simultaneously by manually editing /etc/network/interfaces and /etc/modules.
The same edits worked for both 2.4 and 2.6 kernels, even though the
update-modules manpage that installs with 2.6 says that /etc/modules.conf is
in the process of elimination.
There are some hints that hotplug is now being used to load all
network driver modules. This doesn't appear to work with any ISA boards,
since the kernel is able to detect PCI boards at boot without the help of
any config files, but it cannot detect ISA boards the same way. Digging
through hotplug docs and config files showed that the driver modules hotplug
is supposed to look for are mostly sound drivers, and not network drivers.
Getting hotplug to load ISA-PNP (or ISA non-PNP) driver modules would appear
to require an unknown amount of work.
So if netcfg is to configure an ISA board, even an ISA-PNP board, it
must edit whatever config file is to tell the kernel to load the driver
module, in addition to the stanza it adds to /etc/network/interfaces. For
now, it would seem to be simpler to do this in the traditional way, through
/etc/modules or /etc/modules.conf, rather than through the much more complex
hotplug system.
It should also be noted that most network driver modules don't check
for more than one board using the same driver (a fairly common situation in
firewalls and routers). In the past, this has been handled by adding alias
statements to /etc/network/interfaces. If, as the 2.6 manpage implies,
/etc/network/interfaces is going to be eliminated, then this must be
accomplished in some other way.
Note: this report partly repeats material from 309051. It was
necessary to re-file because the title and severity of that earlier report
were incorrectly changed, causing the significance to be lost.
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