NIC Module Disappears upon reboot
 

Hello,
I have a single Intel Ether Express Pro 100 B NIC. I configured the NIC and had it
working fine, but then I read in the Dell documentation that using the e100 driver will
result in enhanced performance. I had rebooted using the original driver/settings
and my eth0 automatically came up fine each time. After changing the ethernet
module from eepro100 to e100, configuring my network settings and having it work
fine, I lose the eth0 module upon each reboot. Here is what I did to switch out the
modules. I typed lsmod which revealed I did, indeed, have the eepro100 module
installed originally. Next, I typed ifdown eth0 to bring down my ethernet interface.
Then I replaced the instances of eepro100 in my /etc/modules.conf file with e100.
At this point I typed rmmod eepro100 to remove the original module. Typing lsmod
revealed it was gone. Next I typed insmod e100, followed by lsmod, which showed
me the module was installed. I was then able to configure networking and bring
up the interface with ifup eth0. I noticed the NIC was still using irq 11, just like the last
one by typing cat /proc/interrupts. Everything worked perfectly. However, whenever I
reboot, the module no longer shows up in the lsmod list. I can go through the above
steps and get it working again, but I'm a little baffled as to what's happening.
Incidentally, when I replace the new module with the old one again with
insmod and in the /etc/modules.conf file, it also disappears when I reboot--unless I
type setup and set my network parameters from there (then my module stays loaded
after rebooting). Unfortunately, typing setup and doing a net configuration after loading
the new module doesn't help. I still lose it after rebooting.
Any ideas??

:newbie:

It looks the module is not loaded at boot....
In the worst case include all the commands you use to bring it up to /etc/rc.local
It's definitely something wrong with /etc/modules.conf.

Thanks, Mara.
 

Hi Mara,
Well it looks like you were right (you were insightful, as usual). I simply removed the line
options e100 irq=11
from the bottom of my modules.conf file and everything comes right up upon boot. I still
don't get why this makes a bit of difference though. I mean, after the computer
boots and I do an ifconfig, it shows me that irq11 is being used by eth0.
cat /proc/interrupts reveals that aic7xxx, megaraid, and e100 are all using irq11. Could the
processes that occur during bootup be trying to reserve irq11 for aic7xxx and/or megaraid
and somehow prevent e100 from getting it at the time the options e100 irq=11 tries to
assign it? Do you see any problems with my modules.conf file? It is configured as
follows:

alias eth0 e100
alias scsi_hostadapter megaraid
alias scsi_hostadapter megaraid
alias scsi_hostadapter1 aic7xxx
alias scsi_hostadapter2 aic7xxx
alias usb-controller usb-ohci
Thanks, Mara!


:)