Ethernet driver

[kodeine]

My realtek 8125 ethernet driver is not supported and i have to compile it manually but once flatcar updates, the driver becomes unsupported because of kernel headers change and therefore after a reboot i have to manually compile the drivers for new kernel version. I think these drivers should be included in the base flatcar version.

Meanwhile if someone has a solution to this problem please advise.

I think its related to #1558

Thanks

[tormath1]

Hi, thanks for raising this. That's interesting because the driver r8169 is shipped as a kernel module¹

sdk_container/src/third_party/coreos-overlay/sys-kernel/coreos-modules/files/commonconfig-6.6:768:CONFIG_R8169=m

According the Kernel documentation² it should support 8125 as well:

Realtek 8169/8168/8101/8125 ethernet support

Did you try to run sudo modprobe r8169 ? When you boot the instance, can you show dmesg concerned output ?

Footnotes

1. https://github.com/flatcar/scripts/blob/flatcar-4152/sdk_container/src/third_party/coreos-overlay/sys-kernel/coreos-modules/files/commonconfig-6.6#L768 ↩

2. https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.6.91/source/drivers/net/ethernet/realtek/Kconfig#L99 ↩

[kodeine]

@tormath1

r8125 is what i compile manually, logs for both below:

dmesg | grep r8169
[    5.805121] r8169 0000:05:00.0: error -ENODEV: unknown chip XID 688, contact r8169 maintainers (see MAINTAINERS file)


$ dmesg | grep r8125
[   42.723969] r8125: loading out-of-tree module taints kernel.
[   42.729669] r8125: module verification failed: signature and/or required key missing - tainting kernel
[   42.740792] r8125 Ethernet controller driver 9.015.00-NAPI loaded
[   42.761942] r8125: This product is covered by one or more of the following patents: US6,570,884, US6,115,776, and US6,327,625.
[   42.773375] r8125  Copyright (C) 2024 Realtek NIC software team <nicfae@realtek.com> 
[   42.904157] r8125 0000:05:00.0 eno1: renamed from eth0
[   47.756820] r8125: eno1: link up


modinfo r8169
filename:       /lib/modules/6.6.88-flatcar/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/realtek/r8169.ko.xz
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8125b-2.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8125a-3.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8107e-2.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8168fp-3.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8168h-2.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8168g-3.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8168g-2.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8106e-2.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8106e-1.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8411-2.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8411-1.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8402-1.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8168f-2.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8168f-1.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8105e-1.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8168e-3.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8168e-2.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8168e-1.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8168d-2.fw
firmware:       rtl_nic/rtl8168d-1.fw
license:        GPL
softdep:        pre: realtek
description:    RealTek RTL-8169 Gigabit Ethernet driver
author:         Realtek and the Linux r8169 crew <netdev@vger.kernel.org>
alias:          pci:v000010ECd00003000sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000010ECd00008125sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v00000001d00008168sv*sd00002410bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v00001737d00001032sv*sd00000024bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000016ECd00000116sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v00001259d0000C107sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v00001186d00004302sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v00001186d00004300sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v00001186d00004300sv00001186sd00004B10bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000010ECd00008169sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000010FFd00008168sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000010ECd00008168sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000010ECd00008167sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000010ECd00008162sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000010ECd00008161sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000010ECd00008136sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000010ECd00008129sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000010ECd00002600sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias:          pci:v000010ECd00002502sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
depends:        libphy,mdio_devres
retpoline:      Y
intree:         Y
name:           r8169
vermagic:       6.6.88-flatcar SMP preempt mod_unload 
sig_id:         PKCS#7
signer:         
sig_key:        
sig_hashalgo:   unknown
signature:      
core@localhost ~ $ lsmod | grep r8169
r8169                 114688  0
mdio_devres            12288  1 r8169
libphy                200704  3 r8169,mdio_devres,realtek

[jepio]

https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/e9ff0335-9b4a-4b5f-adb0-c9ad9ae78f2c@gmail.com/

Likely this is a typo and you mean XID 688. This chip version is supported by r8169 from kernel version 6.13

[kodeine]

@jepio i have chip xid 688 and it doesn’t seem to be supported you notice in dmesg

[kodeine]

@tormath1 do we have any updates or fix for this please?

[tormath1]

Hi,

I quickly checked and from what @jepio suggested, the support seems to be enabled with this commit: torvalds/linux@f75d1fb which is not backported to Flatcar Kernel version (6.6 or 6.12) it is only available on 6.13 at the moment.

That said, the best we can do is to propose to the LKML to backport the support to 6.12 - I can have a look week to prepare a patch and an image for you to test if it fixes your issue first.

EDIT: Trying here: flatcar/scripts#3006

[kodeine]

@tormath1 that would be perfect, thank you so much for helping out with this. Really appreciate it!

[tormath1]

Hi @kodeine, any chance to test the image built here: https://github.com/flatcar/scripts/pull/3006/checks ? Select "Artifacts" then "amd64-vm-images" (or "arm64-vm-images" if you want to test on arm64)

[kodeine]

@tormath1 i didnt get notification previously.

Ill test this out today and report back