gigabyte ethernet port not working?

TongueTied · 06-23-2004, 10:31 PM

Can anyone tell me what is the story with gigabyte ethernet? I am in the process of setting up a new server which has an Intel SE7210TP1 server board which comes with 1 x 10/100 ethernet port and 1 x 10/100/1000 ethernet port. I have installed SuSE 9.1 on the machine. SuSE seems to recognise the port as a 1000 ethernet port but I can’t seem to get it to communicate with anything else on the network. I try pinging other machines and get no response and similarly, I try pinging that computer from another computer and no response. The 100 ethernet port on the board seems to reposed just fine. Do you think it is a configuration problem or a problem with the port itself?

Now, I am not using a gigabyte switch. Is that a problem? I presume that the 1000 speed port should switch down to 100 if working on a 100 speed switch with other computers operating with 100 speed LAN cards.

Bruce Hill · 06-24-2004, 01:27 AM

SuSE probably just doesn't have support in the distro for your gigabit "out of the box." Issue, as root

Code:

bash-2.05b# lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corp. 82845G/GL [Brookdale-G] Chipset Host Bridge (rev 02)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82845G/GL [Brookdale-G] Chipset AGP Bridge (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #1) (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #2) (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB (Hub #3) (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82801DB USB EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corp. 82801BA/CA/DB PCI Bridge (rev 82)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82801DB ISA Bridge (LPC) (rev 02)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82801DB ICH4 IDE (rev 02)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation: Unknown device 0322 (rev a1)
02:05.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5702 Gigabit Ethernet (rev 02)  <-- eth0, my gigabit nic
02:0a.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)  <-- eth1, my 10/100 Realtek nic
02:0b.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy (rev 03)
02:0b.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Audigy MIDI/Game port (rev 03)
bash-2.05b#

which will show you all the pci devices. The first ethernet controller is eth0, then eth1, etc. Then issue, as root

Code:

bash-2.05b# ifconfig       
eth0      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:E0:18:A3:33:B3  
          inet addr:192.168.1.11  Bcast:192.168.1.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:11780 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:14503 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 
          RX bytes:9101250 (8.6 Mb)  TX bytes:1602283 (1.5 Mb)
          Interrupt:9 

lo        Link encap:Local Loopback  
          inet addr:127.0.0.1  Mask:255.0.0.0
          UP LOOPBACK RUNNING  MTU:16436  Metric:1
          RX packets:38 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:38 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:0 
          RX bytes:1900 (1.8 Kb)  TX bytes:1900 (1.8 Kb)

to see your internet connections. If eth0 or eth1 has an internet address, you're good to go. If you only have eth0 like I just got, then as root issue

Code:

bash-2.05b# ifconfig eth1
eth1      Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:50:BF:6C:0D:A3  
          BROADCAST MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
          TX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
          collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 
          RX bytes:0 (0.0 b)  TX bytes:0 (0.0 b)
          Interrupt:9 Base address:0x1000

to see your second nic, eth1. The previous lspci command will tell us which is which, and which nic they are. We need to know the particular chipset for your nics.

I've never used SuSE, and don't know what makes her tick. However, you can check to see if you have support in your kernel for your gigabit nic by looking at the kernel config file. I don't know where it is in SuSE, but in Slackware 9.1 you can read it by issuing

Code:

bash-2.05b# cat /usr/src/linux-2.4.22/.config | less
<snip, snip>
# Ethernet (1000 Mbit)
#
# CONFIG_ACENIC is not set
# CONFIG_DL2K is not set
# CONFIG_E1000 is not set
# CONFIG_NS83820 is not set
# CONFIG_HAMACHI is not set
# CONFIG_YELLOWFIN is not set
# CONFIG_R8169 is not set
# CONFIG_SK98LIN is not set
CONFIG_TIGON3=y  <-- my Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5702 Gigabit Ethernet
CONFIG_FDDI=y
CONFIG_DEFXX=m
CONFIG_SKFP=m
# CONFIG_HIPPI is not set
CONFIG_PLIP=m
CONFIG_PPP=m
# CONFIG_PPP_MULTILINK is not set
# CONFIG_PPP_FILTER is not set
CONFIG_PPP_ASYNC=m
CONFIG_PPP_SYNC_TTY=m
CONFIG_PPP_DEFLATE=m
CONFIG_PPP_BSDCOMP=m
CONFIG_PPPOE=m
CONFIG_SLIP=m
CONFIG_SLIP_COMPRESSED=y
CONFIG_SLIP_SMART=y
# CONFIG_SLIP_MODE_SLIP6 is not set
<snip, snip>

That kernel .config file is long, so I just included the section for gigabit nics. This is kernel 2.4.22, so your's may be a little different - but not enough there to matter.

First, determine if your nic is supported, and if so, then get it configured. I don't know how SuSE does it, with all the gui things, but in Slack we do it from cli by issuing, as root,
bash-2.05b# netconfig

Post back after checking these things...

Ah, the story behind gigabit ethernet. It's useful on a LAN with gigabit on both ends, but for the internet, it's still going no faster than your regular 10/100 nic. ;-)

TongueTied · 06-24-2004, 01:56 AM

I’ll take a look and post.

I had actually wanted to have the gigabyte facing the internal network and the 10/100 pointing to my DSL line. That way when I finally manage to get a gigabyte switch, I could just pop it in and get a really good throughput between the file server and my CAD station that has gigabyte Ethernet as well.

Bruce Hill · 06-24-2004, 03:56 AM

It's gigabit ethernet. Gigabyte is the name of a company which makes computer peripherials.
Here's some reading from Intel about gigabit networking -> http://www.intel.com/network/connect...t_ethernet.htm

I haven't read myself, because I only have one comp with a gigabit nic. But I wonder if you can network 2 comps with gigabit nics with a crossover cable like you can with two 10/100 nics? Would you get file sharing at 1000Mpbs or 100Mpbs?

hw-tph · 06-24-2004, 04:05 AM

All Intel gigabit Ethernet controllers that I have come across so far use the e1000 module, even on laptops. Type lsmod and look if the module is loaded. If not, load it using modprobe e1000 - if no errors are reported the module loaded fine and you can configure your network.

To make the module load automatically on boot, refer to the SuSE documentation. I am not familiar with SuSE but chances are the distribution supports parsing a file for module names that should be loaded on boot, like Debian (/etc/modules) and Gentoo (/etc/modules.autoload.d/kernel-<major_version>).

Håkan