[CentOS] kmod-e1000e and Intel Network Card

Wed Feb 16 18:21:14 UTC 2011
Alexander Dalloz <ad+lists at uni-x.org>

Am 16.02.2011 18:09, schrieb Akemi Yagi:
> On Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 8:57 AM, Alexander Dalloz <ad+lists at uni-x.org> wrote:

>> Just curious, any specific reason why to choose the ELrepo module over
>> the one coming with the CentOS kernel?
>>
>> I have an RHEL 6 system with an "Intel Corporation 82574L Gigabit
>> Network Connection" NIC, where the e1000e module of the RHEL kernel
>> fails to drive the hardware (no traffic possible, strange effects when
>> tcpduming it). With the kmod-e1000e from ELrepo the 2 onboard 82574L
>> NICs now work.
> 
> You may want to look through this ELRepo web site:
> 
> http://elrepo.org/tiki/Driver+Versions
> 
> As for the e1000e driver, the version offered by ELRepo is newer than
> what is in the EL6 kernel. Often times, ELRepo drivers are built from
> the manufacturer's source files, which would not happen with the
> upstream kernels because their source is from kernel.org).
> 
> But if you'd like more info or questions regarding ELRepo's drivers,
> you will need to ask on the ELRepo mailing list.
> 
> Akemi

Thanks Akemi for your response.

I know you are part of the ELrepo team and saw you contributing to a
bugzilla ticket, asking for updating the e1000e kernel module with
recent Intel sources. I understand the point the Red Hat team is making,
when they say, they will only update when the Intel version found their
way into Linus's vanilla kernel tree.

Though I am planning to open an upstream ticket because the 2 Intel
82574L NICs are not usable with plain RHEL 6, but they are using the
ELrepo module. Unfortunately I was not able to trace and dump much
useful information to fill in the ticket besides to note that simply no
network traffic is going through the NICs with the RHEL 6 kernel module.

Sidenote: The e1000e module coming with CentOS 5.5 does drive the Intel
82574L chips correctly on another box. The boards are btw. a Supermicro
X8SIL.

Glad there is the ELrepo! :)

Regards

Alexander