NIC Sugesstion

Issues related to configuring your network
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JamesB
Posts: 2
Joined: 2007/04/25 12:01:14

NIC Sugesstion

Post by JamesB » 2007/04/25 12:28:43

Hi,

Please can someone recommend a NIC that is 100% supported to add into my CentOS 5 production server.
It only has to be 10/100 and would prefer a Retail rather than OEM card.

Thanks,
James

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WhatsHisName
Posts: 1549
Joined: 2005/12/19 20:21:43
Location: /earth/usa/nj

Re: NIC Sugesstion

Post by WhatsHisName » 2007/04/25 18:11:32

PCI? PCI-X? PCIe?

Although I rarely use them, Intel NICs are highly rated for reliability and should work with CentOS5. It?s hard to go wrong with a 10/100 NIC that has either Intel or 3Com printed on the board.

If you want to spend next to nothing for a PCI gigabit NIC, then a Realtek 8169 chipset-based NIC should do fine, but it will only support up to mtu=7200, so no ?true? jumbo frames support. They typically run US$10-20. Examples: newegg.com item N82E16833117203 (US$9.99) and N82E16833156139 (US$15.99)

I also like the Marvell 88E8001 chipset-based PCI gigabit NICs and Marvell 88E8053 chipset-based PCIe NICs, which do support jumbo frames.

There is a nice listing of NICs, chipsets and drivers at the [url=http://www.etherboot.org/db/nics.php?show=tech_data&vendor=All+Vendors]EtherBoot Project[/url].

JamesB
Posts: 2
Joined: 2007/04/25 12:01:14

Re: NIC Sugesstion

Post by JamesB » 2007/04/26 06:10:30

It's PCI.

Thanks very much for the advice, I was hoping that any recent 3COM card would be supported.

Cheers,
James.

fthomas
Posts: 47
Joined: 2006/10/19 17:51:00

Re: NIC Sugesstion

Post by fthomas » 2007/06/05 17:10:19

I would like to mention that the gigabit interfaces have issues with centos5 (4 as well). I do know that centos is spun from rhel, but I recently loaded centos5 on a new motherboard that has a Realtek 8169 interface built into the motherboard and centos did not see the interface at all.

I had to eventually pull the driver from the realtek site, not a real issue.

The real issue is I have to perform the following steps each and every time the kernel is updated via yum....

[quote]


This is the Linux device driver released for RealTek RTL8169S/8110S, RTL8169SB/8110SB, and RTL8110SC.



- kernel source tree (supported Linux kernel 2.6.x)
- compiler/binutils for kernel compilation



Unpack the tarball :
# tar vjxf r8169-6.aaa.bb.tar.bz2

Change to the directory:
# cd r8169-6.aaa.bb

If you are running the target kernel, then you should be able to do :

# make clean modules (as root or with sudo)
# make install
# depmod -a
# insmod ./src/r8169.ko

You can check whether the driver is loaded by using following commands.

# lsmod | grep r8169
# ifconfig -a

If there is a device name, ethX, shown on the monitor, the linux
driver is loaded. Then, you can use the following command to activate
the ethX.

# ifconfig ethX

,where X=0,1,2,...

[/quote]

That's a real pain. If there is a way to make this interface automatically recognizable, you would make my millenium.

Thanks,

Frank.

Lenard
Posts: 2283
Joined: 2005/11/29 02:35:25
Location: Indiana

NIC Sugesstion

Post by Lenard » 2007/06/05 21:04:25

Suggestion:

Install the dkms rpm package from dag's site: http://dag.wieers.com/rpm/packages/dkms/

Then build/install a dkms-r8169 package:

A sample dkms-r8169.spec file for building;

[code]
Summary: Driver for RealTek RTL8169S/8110S, RTL8169SB/8110SB and RTL8110SC
Name: dkms-r8169
Version: 6.001.00
Release: 1
License: GPL
Group: System Environment/Kernel
URL: http://www.realtek.com.tw/
Source: ftp://61.56.86.122/cn/nic/r8169-%{version}.tar.bz2
BuildRoot: %{_tmppath}/%{name}-%{version}-%{release}-root
BuildArch: noarch
Requires: gcc
Requires(post): dkms
Requires(preun): dkms

%description
RealTek RTL8169S/8110S, RTL8169SB/8110SB and RTL8110SC device driver

%prep
%setup -n r8169-%{version}


%build


%install
%{__rm} -rf %{buildroot}

%define dkms_name r8169
%define dkms_vers %{version}-%{release}
%define quiet -q

# Kernel module sources install for dkms
%{__mkdir_p} %{buildroot}%{_usrsrc}/%{dkms_name}-%{dkms_vers}/
%{__cp} -a src/* %{buildroot}%{_usrsrc}/%{dkms_name}-%{dkms_vers}/

# Configuration for dkms
%{__cat} > %{buildroot}%{_usrsrc}/%{dkms_name}-%{dkms_vers}/dkms.conf << 'EOF'
PACKAGE_NAME=%{dkms_name}
PACKAGE_VERSION=%{dkms_vers}
BUILT_MODULE_NAME[0]=%{dkms_name}
DEST_MODULE_LOCATION[0]=/kernel/drivers/net
AUTOINSTALL="YES"
EOF


%clean
%{__rm} -rf %{buildroot}


%post
# Add to DKMS registry
dkms add -m %{dkms_name} -v %{dkms_vers} %{?quiet} || :
# Rebuild and make available for the currenty running kernel
dkms build -m %{dkms_name} -v %{dkms_vers} %{?quiet} || :
dkms install -m %{dkms_name} -v %{dkms_vers} %{?quiet} --force || :

%preun
# Remove all versions from DKMS registry
dkms remove -m %{dkms_name} -v %{dkms_vers} %{?quiet} --all || :


%files
%defattr(-, root, root, 0755)
%doc release_note.txt readme
%{_usrsrc}/%{dkms_name}-%{dkms_vers}/


%changelog
* Tue June 5 2007 Lenard 6.001.00
- Initial RPM release.
- Based on the work done by Ugo Viti <http://www.initzero.it>
- from his dkms-r1000 source rpm package

[/code]

Sample build command and the results (tail-end only);

rpmbuild -ba dkms-r8169.spec

Requires(post): /bin/sh dkms
Requires(preun): /bin/sh dkms
Requires: gcc
Checking for unpackaged file(s): /usr/lib/rpm/check-files /var/tmp/dkms-r8169-6.001.00-1-root
Wrote: /home/lenard/rpmbuild/SRPMS/dkms-r8169-6.001.00-1.src.rpm
Wrote: /home/lenard/rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/dkms-r8169-6.001.00-1.noarch.rpm
Executing(%clean): /bin/sh -e /var/tmp/rpm-tmp.94103
+ umask 022
+ cd /home/lenard/rpmbuild/BUILD
+ cd r8169-6.001.00
+ /bin/rm -rf /var/tmp/dkms-r8169-6.001.00-1-root
+ exit 0

fthomas
Posts: 47
Joined: 2006/10/19 17:51:00

Re: NIC Sugesstion

Post by fthomas » 2007/06/06 17:37:57

Without checking, do you believe that it will transverse a kernel upgrade where the prescribed method my realtek does not?

Thanks by the way!!!

Also, I'm sorry my question didn't really ask this properly....is there any plans to properly include gigabit support in the here and now into centos4/5 right out of the box? It's all you can get in a lot of cases when it comes to newer motherboards. To me spending on aging technology to get now satisfaction is a bit backwards.

Frank.

Lenard
Posts: 2283
Joined: 2005/11/29 02:35:25
Location: Indiana

Re: NIC Sugesstion

Post by Lenard » 2007/06/06 19:39:08

That is the purpose of dkms and dkms enabled drivers, when the kernel is updated the drivers get built auto matically for the new kernel at boot time. I use dkms with dkms enable drivers ndiswrapper and ati-x11-dev and have not had a problem, even with custom compiled kernels.

Checking the centosplus kernel shows:

$ rpm -qlip kernel-2.6.18-8.1.4.el5.centos.plus.x86_64.rpm | grep r8169
warning: kernel-2.6.18-8.1.4.el5.centos.plus.x86_64.rpm: Header V3 DSA signature: NOKEY, key ID e8562897
/lib/modules/2.6.18-8.1.4.el5.centos.plus/kernel/drivers/net/r8169.ko

So it seems that all one really needs to do is install the plus kernel;

yum install kernel-2.6.18-8.1.4.el5.centos.plus --enablerepo=centosplus

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