bnx2: Please support BCM5716 chipset

[Michael Goetze]

Binary package hint: linux-image-2.6.24-24-generic

We are having trouble running Ubuntu 8.04 on Hardware with the new BCM5716 chipset. Ubuntu boots but fails to recognize any network devices. It should behave exactly the same as the BCM5709 chipset, therefore the fix should be simple, adding some PCI IDs, just like this: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=471903

[Leann Ogasawara (leannogasawara)]

Looks like this is already available in the current Karmic 9.10 Alpha release. I'll open a Hardy nomination for this to be considered for backporting. Thanks.

ogasawara@emiko:~/ubuntu-karmic$ git show 1caacecb7cb2b72e798f06a32b5061075cf397fa
commit 1caacecb7cb2b72e798f06a32b5061075cf397fa
Author: Michael Chan <email address hidden>
Date: Wed Nov 12 16:01:12 2008 -0800

    bnx2: Add PCI ID for 5716S.

    Signed-off-by: Michael Chan <email address hidden>
    Signed-off-by: Matt Carlson <email address hidden>
    Signed-off-by: Benjamin Li <email address hidden>
    Signed-off-by: David S. Miller <email address hidden>

[Michael Goetze (mgoetze)]

Just so there's no confusion, that patch in the RH Bugtracker is for the
5716S (GigE over Fibre), whereas I need the 5716 (GigE over Copper). I
just couldn't find a patch adding exactly that (it probably came with a
new release of the Broadcom driver).

Thanks for looking into it!

[Jose Juan Montes (jjmontes)]

As Michael Goetze stated, the RH Bugracker is for GigE over Fibre (5716S).

This issue seems to be a duplicate of 400250: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/400250.

Thanks.

[Michael Goetze (mgoetze)]

Jose Juan Montes wrote:
> As Michael Goetze stated, the RH Bugracker is for GigE over Fibre
> (5716S).
>
> This issue seems to be a duplicate of 400250:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/400250.

Yes, that is certainly a duplicate, at my workplace we are also using
Dell R410/R210.

However, I don't believe it is strictly necessary to include the newest
version of the bnx2 driver (as Red Hat does for RHEL), rather I am told
that it should be supportable by the older driver with a one-line patch
to add the appropriate PCI ID.

We are currently working around this problem by compiling the newest
bnx2 driver against the Hardy kernel headers, however this is quite an
inconvenience for us..

[Jose Juan Montes (jjmontes)]

I can confirm this. We are now compiling the patched module (adding just the PCI ID to the code). We have tested this linking with linux-headers 2.6.24-24-server, 2.6.24-24-xen and 2.6.24-25-xen, and I am pretty confident it would work on any other Hardy kernel flavour.

I believe this to be a reasonable change for the next Hardy release, given the benefit it yields in terms of hardware support. I kindly suggest Ubuntu to consider backporting the newer driver to next Hardy revision or to hack the current code so it supports BCM5716 patch. The driver version included in Intrepid already includes proper support for BCM5716. Otherwise, if Ubuntu decides to patch bnx2.c , support for both Ethernet and Fiber cards can be added with little effort.

As an example for any reader having the same problem, I am attaching the patch we applied. Note that this is not official, and it does not support BCM5716 chipset over fiber channel, just on 1000Base-T (the patch for 1000Base-SX is included in the RedHat bug report referenced above). A more definitive solution would be based on code from the driver upstream version. Sorry for not providing a complete, proper patch, but it is beyond my knowledge about Ubuntu packaging and kernel development.

[Juergen Pabel (jpabel)]

I've created a solution that patches the existing bnx2.ko module: it modifies an existing PCI ID in order to recognize the BCM5716 chip. My solution is a initramfs hook and takes care of all kernel-updates (and -upgrades); it's a one-stop solution for using BCM5716's on Hardy. More info in my blog: http://blog.akkaya.de/jpabel/2010/01/22/NetXtreme-II-BCM5716-on-Ubuntu-8-04

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

I have put together a dkms deb package for 8.04 to add support for the BCM5716 & BCM5716s. It will install & generate a new initramfs as well. After install reboot and your ready. Will also be submitting patches to get these into the next 8.04 SRU kernel.

[Michael Goetze (mgoetze)]

Hi Jerone,

> I have put together a dkms deb package for 8.04 to add support for the
> BCM5716 & BCM5716s. It will install & generate a new initramfs as well.
> After install reboot and your ready. Will also be submitting patches to
> get these into the next 8.04 SRU kernel.

first of all, thanks for your work on this issue. I am certainly looking
forward to the day this issue is resolved in the stable kernel.

Meanwhile, I am having some trouble with your DKMS package:

root@r210:~# dpkg-reconfigure bnx2-dkms

------------------------------
Deleting module version: 1.6.9.1
completely from the DKMS tree.
------------------------------
Done.
WARNING: /usr/lib/dkms/common.postinst does not exist.
Loading new bnx2-1.6.9.1 DKMS files...
First Installation: checking all kernels...
Building only for 2.6.24-27-server
Building for architecture x86_64
Module build for the currently running kernel was skipped since the
kernel source for this kernel does not seem to be installed.

I noticed that headers were pulled in during installation, but not the
full source. I tried installing the full source, but that didn't help,
so I'm assuming that this isn't working because I'm using the -server
variant.

Regards,
Michael

[Jerone Young (jerone)]

You are missing the header packages for your kernel. You need to have

"apt-get install linux-header-server" for your server kernel. This is
meta package that keeps the linux-headers installed with new kernel
installs.

You can also find linux-headers-<kern ver>-server as well. Which the
first package I mentioned installs.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Accepted linux into karmic-proposed, the package will build now and be available in a few hours. Please test and give feedback here. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

[Michael Goetze (mgoetze)]

Martin Pitt wrote:
> Accepted linux into karmic-proposed, the package will build now and be
> available in a few hours. Please test and give feedback here. See
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to
> enable and use -proposed. Thank you in advance!

Hm, karmic? Do you mean hardy?

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Sorry, this was supposed to be "hardy-proposed".

[Michael Goetze (mgoetze)]

linux-image-2.6.24-27-server_2.6.24-27.69_amd64.deb
linux-image-2.6.24-27-server_2.6.24-27.69_i386.deb

both work for me on a Dell PowerEdge R210.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package linux - 2.6.24-27.69

---------------
linux (2.6.24-27.69) hardy-proposed; urgency=low

  [Colin Ian King]

  * SAUCE: Disable 4MB page tables for Atom, work around errata AAE44
    - LP: #523112, #322867

  [Stefan Bader]

  * Fix build failure in bnx2
    - LP: #435185

  [Upstream Kernel Changes]

  * bnx2: Add PCI ID for 5716.
    - LP: #435185
  * bnx2: Add PCI ID for 5716S.
    - LP: #435185
 -- Stefan Bader <email address hidden> Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:13:51 +0000

[Scott Clark (clar2242)]

Hi,

I'm using this proposed ubuntu-installer (from http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/hardy-proposed/main/installer-amd64/current/images/netboot/ubuntu-installer/amd64/) to install hardy on Dell r210s and r410s with the BCM5716 chipset, as the standard Hardy installer doesn't support the 5716.

We use IPMI to remotely control the power using the builtin BMC using a 802.1q vlan (the ipmi vlan is tagged, normal public network is native vlan on the switchport)

As soon as the bnx2 driver is loaded during the install ipmi stops responding, but the install completes successfully.

Rebooting the machine manually, ipmi starts to work again up until the bnx2 driver is loaded again.
Removing the bnx2 driver using rmmod, it starts to respond again, but obviously I loose network connectivity.

Installing Lucid on the same machine works as expected, the bnx2 is loaded and ipmi still works.

Any ideas?

Scott

[Scott Clark (clar2242)]

I've installed the latest bnx2 driver from Broadcom, updated my initrd and now when it loads the bnx2 driver, ipmi still works as expected.

So it looks like you'll have to update to the latest (or a later version) of the bnx driver like Redhat do to support the 5716 properly...

[Julian Wiedmann (jwiedmann)]

This release has reached end-of-life [0].

[0] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases