Need help on 1000gb ethernet config

[CptKrf]

RedHat 9
New Abit motherboard, vanilla system, nothing special.

I am trying to install a Dlink DGE-530T 1000gb card. Kudzu will not even recognize that the card is been plugged in, which is strange (I tried 3 other cards just to make sure that I didn't have a dead one. Besides, XP (on the other partition) will see the card even though it doesn't know what to do with it. The Dlink drivers downloaded from their site won't compile, which is another problem I am working on.

However, a couple of newsgroup contacts say that they have this card and it works well, although they have RH 7.x. Theirs worked by compiling the RH included driver dl2k.o into the kernel.

I did that and now have a kernel with the driver included. Kudzu still doesn't see the card. Another contact said to put a line in the /etc/modules.conf to make the driver load at start up. That is my question.

I can't figure out what the format of the line needs to be. Not just 'd2lk' - that doesn't work. The man page on modules.conf is not exactly clear (ha!) and has the characteristic failure of most man pages - that of having absolutely no examples.

Also, I assume that there is a way to load the driver once the system is up, but haven't located that yet either. Modprobe seems to be the a way, but hasn't worked yet other than to crash my system once:)

Anybody?

CptKrf

[CptKrf]

Sorry guy and gals. I meant 1000mb ethernet. In case anybody is wondering where I got the parts I have to say that I am NOT running a Terabit ethernet.

Cptkrf

[mdwatts]

First ensure you have PnP OS disabled in the system bios as that alone can prevent PCI devices from being detected properly.

Does the module successfully load using

modprobe dl2k

as root? If no errors, add

alias eth0 dl2k

to /etc/modules.conf and then run

depmod -ae

both as root.

You will then need to use whatever network config tools your distro provides to either setup dhcp or static ip addressing and also specify the isp dns servers in /etc/resolv.conf the the default gateway address.

[CptKrf]

Thanks for the reply, mdwatts.

Last nite I set up a dual boot machine with XP on the other side and downloaded the Win drivers from Dlink. They found the card ok, drivers loaded and the box came on line and connected. So...
I don't have a hardware problem, or MB conflict - it has to be a driver problem in Linux. Also, unlike most NICs, no link or other lites appear on switch or card until the driver is loaded.

Then...
Cranked up the Linux side (RH-9) and it still didn't see anything. Ran modprobe dl2k and got the following...

[root@Antares cptkrf]# /sbin/modprobe dl2k
/lib/modules/2.4.20-6/kernel/drivers/net/dl2k.o: init_module: No such device

Apparently, despite others saying that dl2k.o for the DGE-530T works for them, my cards are newer or different. Or I am doing something totally wrong.

The Dlink site gives the source for a driver called sk98lin.0 but trying to compile it gives a zillion errors. Will try to talk to Dlink support in AM.

Thanks

[phlipant]

sorry, misread the post.

[phlipant]

is suspect you need an options statement in /etc/modules.conf. a typical example is

alias eth1 tulip
options tulip options=11

which loads a tulip driver and then sets in at high speed. the output of your insmod command is probably, something like

insmod dl2k
Using /lib/modules/2.4.20-30.9/kernel/drivers/net/dl2k.o
/lib/modules/2.4.20-30.9/kernel/drivers/net/dl2k.o: init_module: No such device
Hint: insmod errors can be caused by incorrect module parameters, including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.
You may find more information in syslog or the output from dmesg

suggesting options parameters need to be set.

while i do not know how to set the IRQ parameters of your card, maybe you RH7.x friend can give you a copy of his/her modules.conf file.

[CptKrf]

An update for your edification.

Dlink support sent me a script to check my downloaded tar file and it failed the crc check. Downloaded twice more and got the same thing. Signed on to another ISP and downloaded and it passed this time. ???? Go figure.

The distro included dl2k.0 driver will not work on the latest DGE-510T cards since they are an 'A' version update. (So why didn't you guys name it 510T-A or something???)

Compiled Dlink's driver (sk78lin.o) and it loaded and ran immediately on Knoppix/Debian and Slackware. Unlike most 10/100 NICs, the link and other lites don't activate until the driver is loaded. Work great! (and FAST!!!)

Driver still will not compile on RedHat 9 - one error is that it requires GCC 3 and says that I am trying to compile it with GCC 2 which is totally wrong. But this is not the first time that RH9 refused to compile something that is a slamdunk on other distros. Since part of this project is to migrate off of RedHat I have decided to leave the RH box at 100mb till I dump it.

Thanks all
Cptkrf

[JohnT]

Good job of problem solving.:p

[phlipant]

you would no longer have gcc 2, if you have been running up2date or yum. i run RH9 and use gcc3.

# gcc -v
Reading specs from /usr/lib/gcc-lib/i386-redhat-linux/3.2.2/specs
Configured with: ../configure --prefix=/usr --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info --enable-shared --enable-threads=posix --disable-checking --with-system-zlib --enable-__cxa_atexit --host=i386-redhat-linux
Thread model: posix
gcc version 3.2.2 20030222 (Red Hat Linux 3.2.2-5)

it is hardly fair to complain about an ancient red hat release, with no patches applied, when comparing to a new release of some other distro.

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by CptKrf

Compiled Dlink's driver (sk78lin.o) and it loaded and ran immediately on Knoppix/Debian and Slackware. Unlike most 10/100 NICs, the link and other lites don't activate until the driver is loaded. Work great! (and FAST!!!)

Driver still will not compile on RedHat 9 - one error is that it requires GCC 3 and says that I am trying to compile it with GCC 2 which is totally wrong. But this is not the first time that RH9 refused to compile something that is a slamdunk on other distros. Since part of this project is to migrate off of RedHat I have decided to leave the RH box at 100mb till I dump it.


Have you tried loading the sk98lin.o module that is usually included with the stock kernel? See if you can load with

modprobe sk98lin

Though I do not have a nic that uses the sk98lin module, my stock/default kernel still has the module in

/lib/modules/2.4.21-199-smp4G/kernel/drivers/net/sk98lin/sk98lin.o

[CptKrf]

>you would no longer have gcc 2, if you have been running up2date or yum. i run RH9 and use gcc3.
it is hardly fair to complain about an ancient red hat release, with no patches applied, when comparing to anew release of some other distro.

I agree, but I am on the far end of a rural phone line that uses spare barbed wire strands for connection and online updates of any size are impossible. Besides, if it compiles on RH7.3, why not on RH9?



Have you tried loading the sk98lin.o module that is usually included with the stock kernel? See if you can


Yes, I don't remember the exact message but it complained that I was using kernel-xxxx and the module was compiled for kernel-yyyy. I also got that module from other distros which I was almost sure wouldn't work, but tried it anyway. Didn't work.

So far I have it working on every distro that I have in stock except RH9.

Cptkrf

[CptKrf]

This has nothing to do with my problem, but is some observations on the link since it started working.

1000mb ethernet has really fallen in price. I got the dlink switch for 69 bucks and the cards for 25.

I have been transfering a 4.5 gig movie file back and forth as a test and it is really awesome. I also set up a configuration of a nfs fileserver and mounted to it from my desktop and ran some casual time tests. I now get the same access time from the remote server as I do on my local drive, so it is obvious that the bottleneck has now been moved from the NIC back to the hard drives. It would be interesting to try the same thing with SATA drives.

Also, if you have a private network, you can set the cards for non-standard and really BIG packet sizes which really adds to the thruput. (Don't do this on a standard network with other people - it will be collision city!) Assuming 8.2 bits per transmitted byte, I can get about an 80 percent utilization of bandwidth. Obviously, if I was on a network with other users, this would never top the usual 40 percent bandwidth/collision knee of ethernet.

So, it works great for my cluster building, except that I can no longer set up a file transfer and go for more ice and Dr. Pepper before it finishes.

By the way, if you don't have a 64bit PCI bus, don't bother. One of these plugged into an older 32bit PCI is not much faster than 100mb.

CptKrf

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by CptKrf

Yes, I don't remember the exact message but it complained that I was using kernel-xxxx and the module was compiled for kernel-yyyy. I also got that module from other distros which I was almost sure wouldn't work, but tried it anyway. Didn't work.


What does

uname -r

report for the running kernel version and what version do you have for the modules (/lib/modules/<kernel version>?

You could try forcing the loading of the module.

modprobe -f sk98lin

[CptKrf]

Originally posted by mdwatts
What does

uname -r

report for the running kernel version and what version do you have for the modules (/lib/modules/<kernel version>?

You could try forcing the loading of the module.

modprobe -f sk98lin

I booted the original kernel that came with the CDs to make sure that the included drivers matched but it made no difference.

Plus, my version has no -f option for modprobe.

Anyway, I took a card to a customer who has a RH-9 and a T1 line so the load was up to date, patch wise, and ran through the same procedures. Got exactly the same thing. Source wouldn't compile and the included module (sk98lin.0) wouldn't load.

I have some new Fedora CDs. I may load it on a partition and see if I get the same thing.

As my new Debian system is almost up to speed, it is an academic problem anyway. However, I certainly appreciate all the advice and help.

Thanks
CptKrf

[bandwidth_pig]

Can you feel my envy? So, do you have that beast going into a switch? If so, what kind? I have often pondered upgrading to Gig myself...just for grins really.

[JohnT]

From the site:


This script will automatically compile and load the sk98lin driver on your
host system. Before performing both compilation and loading, it is necessary
to shutdown any device using the sk98lin kernel module and to unload the
old sk98lin kernel module. This script will do this automatically per
default. If you want to shutdown and unload the old sk98lin kernel module
manually, run the script in the EXPERT mode.

Please plug a card into your machine. Without a card we aren't able to check
the full driver functionality.

Be sure to use the same kernel source and kernel version. For instance,it might be, that you run kernel version 2.4.20, but the header files the
kernel module will be compiled with refer to kernel version 2.4.21. If you
don't have the same kernel version, please install the sources and compile
a new kernel. It's not possible to mix different kernel versions!


http://www.syskonnect.com/syskonnect/support/driver/d0102_driver.html

[phlipant]

Originally posted by CptKrf
>you would no longer have gcc 2, if you have been running up2date or yum. i run RH9 and use gcc3.
it is hardly fair to complain about an ancient red hat release, with no patches applied, when comparing to anew release of some other distro.

I agree, but I am on the far end of a rural phone line that uses spare barbed wire strands for connection and online updates of any size are impossible. Besides, if it compiles on RH7.3, why not on RH9?



Have you tried loading the sk98lin.o module that is usually included with the stock kernel? See if you can


Yes, I don't remember the exact message but it complained that I was using kernel-xxxx and the module was compiled for kernel-yyyy. I also got that module from other distros which I was almost sure wouldn't work, but tried it anyway. Didn't work.

So far I have it working on every distro that I have in stock except RH9.

Cptkrf


i did a

insmod sk98lin

all i got was No such device:confused::confused: :confused:

[CptKrf]

Originally posted by bandwidth_pig
Can you feel my envy? So, do you have that beast going into a switch? If so, what kind? I have often pondered upgrading to Gig myself...just for grins really.

Yep. A couple of months ago I was in Frys looking at 1gb stuff, but was in the hundreds of $$$ and was names I never heard of.

Just last week, I did a pricewatch search and found that the prices had really dropped. Got a Dlink 1gb/100/10 switch for about $70US and the Dlink cards for $24 ea. If you are on your own private (home) network where there is little chance of collisions, the throughput is awesome.

Again, as I mentioned, if your MBs don't have 64bit PCI busses don't waste your money. I wasted an hour or so on my backup server, which is an old Celeron with humongous drives, wondering why it was so slow before I realised the old buss was the problem.

(MB for sale cheap!:)

CptKrf

[bandwidth_pig]

Thats a good deal. You should have zero collisions with a switch. Never a single one regardless of a home network or commericial. If your using a hub that is a different story. A hub still shares the medium...which makes the whole CSMA/CD side of Ethernet come into play (which is only half duplex I might add). A switch segments out each connection providing full duplex.

Thanks for the info on price.

[mdwatts]

Originally posted by CptKrf

Plus, my version has no -f option for modprobe.


Some versions of modprobe do not have the '-f' option. You can check the modprobe manpage (man modprobe) or else use insmod.

insmod -f sk98lin

[-NX-]

Actually I was having the same problem with RH9 that the dlink source would not compile. I sort of debugged it a bit and found the header files where the makefile was looking seemed too useless to be true (they did nothing so how could it know the type definitions the compiler was complaining about?). Also the path did not seem right from what I was used to when I compiled a RH kernel back in the 5.2 day when I would bother to do so.

So I looked around and found the real source root directory for Red Hat which was not the area the makefile was looking at. I went in the makefile and hacked it to work. The make variable INCLUDEDIR is to dlink's credit trying to determine the correct directory for different flavors of linux. Unfortunately it is not working for RH 9. So I just commented out their more sophisticated assignment and hard-coded it to where the include dir is for RH 9 (well at least for mine which should be the same).

INCLUDEDIR = /usr/src/linux-2.4.20-8/include

Once I did this I was able to compile the source correctly. So if you really want to put gb ethernet on your RH then you can try this to compile dlink driver.

-NX

[hard candy]

OOOO! I want a 1000Gb connection to the internet! :)

Heck, even a 1GB would work!