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Re: The dreaded RTL8111/8168B, ethernet driver failure



On 08/07/13 18:16, John McCardle wrote:
Thanks for the feedback, Glenn.

I adapted your block for a static IP for my network:
# The primary network interface
iface eth0 inet static
         address 192.168.1.199
         netmask 255.255.255.0
         broadcast 192.168.1.255
         network 192.168.1.0
         gateway 192.168.1.1

This causes the system to take much longer to boot up, as it hangs at
the "Starting MTA" phase. Also, I'm no longer able to SSH into the
system via eth1, which is a USB ethernet adapter I use for
troubleshooting. On a semi-related note, upon attempting to plug a USB
keyboard into the system, the kernel crashes, which was not the case
when I was assembling the parts and installing the base OS. (These parts
are all brand new.)

To anyone googling this, save yourself the hassle: RMA whatever hardware
you have, and order something with a different brand of NIC on board.
Intel and Broadcom seem to be more sociable.


On Mon, Jul 8, 2013 at 2:05 AM, Glenn English <ghe@slsware.com
<mailto:ghe@slsware.com>> wrote:


    On Jul 7, 2013, at 10:31 PM, John McCardle wrote:

     > I am trying to use a realtek NIC under Linux (Debian 7.1). It is
    the onboard ethernet in my Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3.

    I'm sorry, I can't tell you how to make it go. But if it's any use,
    I can tell you what a known working IPv4 1000baseT/Full looks like
    on a Dell server I'm bringing up:

    root@server:/etc/nsd3# lspci | egrep -i ethernet
    04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5722
    Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express

    root@server:/etc/nsd3# cat /etc/network/interfaces
    # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
    # and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

    # The loopback network interface
    auto lo eth0
    iface lo inet loopback
             allow-hotplug eth0

    # The primary network interface
    iface eth0 inet static
             address 192.168.2.202
             netmask 255.255.255.0
             broadcast 192.168.2.255
             network 192.168.2.0
             gateway 192.168.2.1
             # dns-* options are implemented by the resolvconf package,
    if installed

    root@server:/etc/nsd3# ifconfig eth0
    eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:26:b9:67:b6:ac
               inet addr:192.168.2.202  Bcast:192.168.2.255
      Mask:255.255.255.0
               inet6 addr: fe80::226:b9ff:fe67:b6ac/64 Scope:Link
               UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
               RX packets:7424 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
               TX packets:7228 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
               collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
               RX bytes:787352 (768.8 KiB)  TX bytes:2108943 (2.0 MiB)
               Interrupt:17

    root@server:/etc/nsd3# ethtool eth0
    Settings for eth0:
             Supported ports: [ TP ]
             Supported link modes:   10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                     100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                     1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
             Supported pause frame use: No
             Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
             Advertised link modes:  10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
                                     100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
                                     1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
             Advertised pause frame use: Symmetric
             Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
             Speed: 1000Mb/s
             Duplex: Full
             Port: Twisted Pair
             PHYAD: 1
             Transceiver: internal
             Auto-negotiation: on
             MDI-X: Unknown
             Supports Wake-on: g
             Wake-on: d
             Current message level: 0x000000ff (255)
                                    drv probe link timer ifdown ifup
    rx_err tx_err
             Link detected: yes

    root@server:/etc/nsd3# ethtool -i eth0
    driver: tg3
    version: 3.121
    firmware-version: 5722-v3.10
    bus-info: 0000:04:00.0
    supports-statistics: yes
    supports-test: yes
    supports-eeprom-access: yes
    supports-register-dump: yes
    supports-priv-flags: no


    What's that eth1 all about in your interfaces configuration? If eth0
    is *the* onboard ethernet, might eth1 be confusing something?

    --
    Glenn English





One of my servers has an Intel miniITX motherboard DG41MJ, with the same on-board ethernet hardware as yours:

$ lspci | grep -i ethernet
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 03)

$ sudo ethtool -i eth0
driver: r8169
version: 2.3LK-NAPI
firmware-version: rtl_nic/rtl8168d-1.fw
bus-info: 0000:03:00.0
supports-statistics: yes
supports-test: no
supports-eeprom-access: no
supports-register-dump: yes
supports-priv-flags: no

$ dmesg | grep -i r8169
r8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver 2.3LK-NAPI loaded
r8169 0000:03:00.0: setting latency timer to 64
r8169 0000:03:00.0: irq 43 for MSI/MSI-X
r8169 0000:03:00.0: eth0: RTL8168d/8111d at 0xffffc9000067a000, 00:27:0e:2b:3e:f1, XID 081000c0 IRQ 43 r8169 0000:03:00.0: eth0: jumbo features [frames: 9200 bytes, tx checksumming: ko]
r8169 0000:03:00.0: firmware: agent loaded rtl_nic/rtl8168d-1.fw into memory


It's been working fine for two year or so, now running Wheezy. The one difference to your 'ethtool' result I can see is that mine shows a firmware version. Have you got the "firmware-realtek" package installed, or is that not required for the Realtek 8168 driver?

--
Klaus


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