Ethernet adapters with Intel 8255x Chipsets: Problems running SuSE Linux 7.0

Support knowledgebase (eepro100_e100)
Applies to

SuSE Linux: Version 7.0,7.1
This article refers to an older version of SuSE Linux. Therefore some of the informations given in this article may be outdated or the article may contain stale links.

Kernel: Versions 2.2.16 to 2.2.18

Symptom:

You experience problems when operating an ethernet adapter based on one of the Intel chipsets 8255{7,8,9} (e.g. the EtherExpress Pro100) in a system running SuSE Linux 7.0 or 7.1. The ethernet driver identifies itself like this (see /var/log/messages or /var/log/boot.msg):

SuSE Linux 7.0, kernel 2.2.16:

kernel: eepro100.c:v1.09j-t 9/29/99 Donald Becker 
   http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/eepro100.html
kernel: eepro100.c: $Revision: 1.3 $ 2000/05/31 
   Modified by Andrey V. Savochkin  and others

SuSE Linux 7.1, kernel 2.2.18:

kernel: eepro100.c:v1.09j-t 9/29/99 Donald Becker
   http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/eepro100.html
kernel: eepro100.c: $Revision: 1.3 $ 2000/11/17
   Modified by Andrey V. Savochkin  and others
Problems include: Frequently these problems are accompanied by typical kernel error messages like the following ones (see /var/log/messages or the Alt-F10 syslog console):
kernel: eth0: card reports no RX buffers.
kernel: eth0: card reports no resources.

Cause:

A bug in this version of the eepro100 driver which did not make itself apparent with earlier Linux kernel versions.

Possible solutions:

Switching to another driver may help. Two available possibilities:

Intel e100

Intel provides a driver called e100 for the same family of ethernet adapters. Pre-compiled versions for the SuSE 7.0 standard kernels are available from ftp.suse.com and its mirrors. SuSE tested the pre-compiled modules on several SuSE 7.0-systems where the eepro100 had caused troubles and encountered no problems. Recommended.

SuSE Linux 7.1 provides the e100 module included into its kernel sources and pre-compiled kernels. So all you need to do here is to replace eepro100 with e100 in /etc/modules.conf and run depmod -a. Then stop the network, unload the eepro100 module and re-start the network.

The URLs:

eepro100: Recent version

If you prefer to upgrade to the most recent version of eepro100 (included building the module yourself), you can retrieve the sources directly from the author's eepro100 webpage ( http://www.scyld.com/network/eepro100.html ).

Warning: To use this eepro100 version, you need to additionally download and build an auxiliary module called pci-scan . This module is not integrated into the kernel used for SuSE Linux 7.0 and might prove impossible to load because of symbol naming conflicts (depending on which other kernel components and modules are active in your system). In this case, using the new eepro100 involves kernel modifications which are beyond the scope of this SDB article.


Keywords: INTEL, EEPRO100, ETHEREXPRESS, NETWORK, DEVELOPMENT, EXPERIMENTAL, DRIVER

Categories: Network

SDB-eepro100_e100, Copyright SuSE Linux AG, Nürnberg, Germany - Version: 20. Dez 2000
SuSE Linux AG - Last generated: 26. Feb 2001 by kgw (sdb_gen 1.40.0)