Network Card Woes

Matthew Galgoci mgalgoci at redhat.com
Thu Jul 8 15:37:00 UTC 2004


On Thu, 8 Jul 2004 Johnson_Brian at emc.com wrote:

> Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 09:49:26 -0400 
> From: Johnson_Brian at emc.com
> Reply-To: A Discussion forum for System Administrators targeted at but
>     not  restricted  to Red Hat Linux systems.
>     <redhat-sysadmin-list at redhat.com>
> To: redhat-sysadmin-list at redhat.com
> Subject: Network Card Woes
> 
> I have three identical machines running three different versions of Red Hat.

Step 1 - unless there is a good reason all three machines should not be running the
same version of Red Hat Linux, you will want to bring them all into parity, version
wise.

> Each one identifies the network cards differently. None of them work.
> Each machine has one Digital Equipment Corp Ethernet combo card with an AUI
> and a BNC connector.
> Each machine has a second Ethernet card with four RJ-45 ports.
> Here are the three versions of Linux and what they tell me about the NICs
> after installation:

Step 2 - unless you specifically need the bnc media connector, replace any NICs that
have bnc media with something modern, like an intel e100 for example.
 
> Version 2.4.21-15
> /etc/modules.conf says: eth0 = Starfire
> /proc/pci says: "Ethernet Adaptec ANA620xx" (four entries)
> 
> Version 2.4.9-e
> /etc/modules.conf says: (nothing, no alias was created)
> /proc/pci says: "Ethernet Adaptec ANA620xx" (four entries)
> 
> Version 2.4.21-9
> /etc/modules.conf says: eth0 = E100 and eth1 = Tulip
> /proc/pci says: "Intel 82557" and "DEC chip 21140"
> 
> I have edited /etc/sysconfig/network, and created the
> /etc/sysconfig/ifcfg-eth0 files and rebooted.
> The startup scripts report the loop backs start, then eth0 starts with
> success.
> But at the command line, ifconfig shows no eth0 interfaces. All I see are
> the loop backs.
> ">ifup eth0" tells me "Device Starfire does not seem to be present."

For the 2.4.9-e series kernels (this kernel is from RHEL 2.1AS), you need to make sure
you have the kernel-unsupported package installed, as the starfire driver was moved
to this package because of resource limitations (eg, I think the kernel group has exactly 
one of these cards).

Also be aware that starfire cards will manifest themselves as 4 sepperate ethernet
interfaces, eg, eth0, eth1, eth2, and eth3, depending on if there are other drivers 
loaded beforehand.

You can check for the presence of a specific kernel module by running modinfo on the driver
you want to check. This roots out the possibility that the driver is missing or unloadable
for whatever reason. For example, for e100, you would do: /sbin/modinfo e100
And for the adaptec starfire driver, /sbin/modinfo starfire

Regards,

Matthew Galgoci

-- 
Matthew Galgoci
System Administrator and Sr. Manager of Ruminants
Red Hat, Inc
919.754.3700 x44155
-------------- next part --------------
--
redhat-sysadmin-list mailing list
redhat-sysadmin-list at redhat.com
http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/redhat-sysadmin-list


More information about the redhat-sysadmin-list mailing list