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Red Hat Linux* Driver for the Intel® PRO/100 Family of Adapters: Intel Network Adapters User Guide

Overview
Supported Adapters
Building and Installation
Command Line Parameters
CPU Cycle Saver
Additional Configurations
Troubleshooting
Support

Overview

This file describes the Intel driver, version 2.2.x, for the Intel PRO/100 Family of Server Adapters installed on Red Hat Linux* systems. This driver is intended for 2.4.x kernels; it is known to build properly on 2.4.x kernels through 2.4.18. Intel focused testing on Intel architectures running the 2.4.18 kernel.

The Intel PRO/100 driver is only supported as a loadable module at this time. Intel is not supplying patches against the kernel source to allow for static linking of the driver. For questions related to hardware requirements refer to the documentation supplied with your Intel PRO/100 adapter.

Intel supplies pre-built binary RPM files of this driver for Red Hat Linux distributions. For instructions on installing an RPM, see the Building and Installation section.

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Supported Adapters

The following Intel network adapters are compatible with the drivers in this release:

To verify your adapter is supported, find the board ID number on the adapter. Look for a label that has a barcode and a number in the format 123456-001 (six digits hyphen three digits). Match this to the list of numbers above.

For more information on how to identify your adapter or for the latest Intel PRO/100 network driver for Red Hat Linux, see Customer Support.

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Building and Installation

NOTE: For the build to work properly it is important that the currently running kernel MATCH the version and configuration of the installed kernel source. If you have just recompiled your kernel, reboot the system and choose the correct kernel to boot.

NOTE: Remove the non-Intel eepro100 module before installing e100.

There are two methods available for installing the e100 driver: installing from source code; and installing from a pre-built binary RPM. The pre-built binary installation is recommended if you are using Red Hat Advanced Server 2.1 kernel ver. 2.4.9-e.3. If not, you must use the source code installation method.

Installing from Source Code

1. Move the base driver tar file to the directory of your choice. For example, use '/home/username/e100' or '/usr/local/src/e100'.
2. Untar/unzip the archive by entering the following, where <x.x.x> is the version number for the driver tar:
       tar xfz e100-<x.x.x>.tar.gz
3. Change to the driver src directory by entering the following, where <x.x.x> is the version number for the driver tar:
       cd e100-<x.x.x>/src/
4. Compile the driver module:
       make install
   The binary will be installed as one of the following:
        /lib/modules/<kernel_version>/kernel/drivers/net/e100.o
        /lib/modules/<kernel_version>/net/e100.o
5. Install the module:
       insmod e100 <option>=<value>

See the Command Line Parameters Section for options and values.

6. Assign an IP address to the interface by entering the following, where <x> is the interface number:
       ifconfig eth<x> <IP_address>
7. Verify that the interface works. Enter the following, where <IP_address> is the IP address for another machine on the same subnet as the interface that is being tested:
       ping <IP_address>

To build a binary RPM* package of this driver, run 'rpmbuild -tb <filename.tar.gz>'. Replace <filename.tar.gz> with the specific file name of the driver.

Installing a Pre-Built Binary RPM

NOTE: Only use the following method if using Red Hat Advanced Server 2.1 kernel ver. 2.4.9-e.3.

Intel supplies pre-built binary RPM files of this driver for Red Hat Linux distributions. On the installation CD, the RPM is located at: \PRO1000\LINUX\e1000-2.2.17-rh21as.i386.rpm. Otherwise, navigate to the directory containing the RPM that you wish to install. To install or uninstall the RPMs, follow the instructions below.

NOTE: The <filename> and <package> must be specific to the driver version and distribution you are using. <filename> is the entire filename; for example, e100-2.0.32-rh72.i386.rpm. <package> is just the package name; for example, e1000-2.0.32-rh72.

NOTE:  If you have a previous RPM installed, it must be uninstalled before installing the new RPM. To determine whether or not a previous RPM is installed, enter rpm -q e100.

To install the RPM, enter: 
    rpm -i <filename>
To uninstall the RPM, enter:
    rpm -e <package>

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Command Line Parameters

The following optional parameters are used by entering them on the command line with the modprobe or insmod command using this syntax:

modprobe e100 [<option>=<VAL1>,<VAL2>,...]

insmod e100 [<option>=<VAL1>,<VAL2>,...]

                For parameters and possible values, see the table below.

For example, with two Intel PRO/100 PCI adapters, entering:

modprobe e100 TxDescriptors=32,128

loads the e100 driver with 32 TX resources for the first adapter and 128 TX resources for the second adapter. This configuration favors the second adapter. The driver supports up to 16 network adapters concurrently.

The default value for each parameter is generally the recommended setting, unless otherwise noted.

NOTE: Giving any command line option the value "-1" means that the driver will use the appropriate default value for that option, as if no value was specified.

The following table contains parameters and possible values for insmod and modprobe commands:

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CPU Cycle Saver

CPU Cycle Saver reduces CPU utilization by reducing the number of interrupts that the adapter generates.

When CPU Cycle Saver is turned off, the adapter generates one interrupt for every frame that is received. This means that the operating system stops what it is doing and switches to the network driver in order to process the receive.

When CPU Cycle Saver is on, the adapter does not generate an interrupt for every frame it receives. Instead, it waits until it receives several frames before generating an interrupt. This reduces the amount of time spent switching to and from the driver.

CPU Cycle Saver consists of these arguments: IntDelay, BundleMax and BundleSmallFr. When IntDelay is increased, the adapter waits longer for frames to arrive before generating the interrupt. By increasing BundleMax, the network adapter waits for the number of small frames (less than 128 bytes) specified to arrive before generating the interrupt. When BundleSmallFr is disabled, the adapter does not bundle small packets. Such small packets are often, but not always, control packets that are better served immediately; therefore, BundleSmallFr is disabled by default.

For most users, it is recommended that CPU Cycle Saver be used with the default values specified in the Command Line Parameters section. However, in some cases, performance problems may occur with CPU Cycle Saver. If such problems are observed, we recommend turning off this feature by setting ucode=0.

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Additional Configurations

Configuring the Driver on Different Distributions

Configuring a network driver to load properly when the system is started is distribution dependent. Typically, the configuration process involves adding an alias line to /etc/modules.conf as well as editing other system startup scripts and/or configuration files. Many popular Red Hat Linux distributions ship with tools to make these changes for you. To learn the proper way to configure a network device for your system, refer to your distribution documentation. If during this process you are asked for the driver or module name, the name for the Red Hat Linux Base Driver for the Intel PRO/100 Family of Adapters is e100.

As an example, if you install the e100 driver for two Intel PRO/100 adapters (eth0 and eth1) and set the speed and duplex to 10full and 100half, add the following to modules.conf:

alias eth0 e100
alias eth1 e100
options e100 e100_speed_duplex=2,3

Viewing Link Messages

In order to see link messages and other Intel driver information on your console, you must set the dmesg level up to six. This can be done by entering the following on the command line before loading the e100 driver:

dmesg -n 6

If you wish to see all messages issued by the driver, including debug messages, set the dmesg level to eight.

NOTE: This setting is not saved across reboots.

Enabling Wake on LAN* (WoL)

WoL is configured through the Ethtool* utility. Ethtool is included with all versions of Red Hat after Red Hat 7.2. For other Linux distributions, download and install Ethtool from the following website: http://sourceforge.net/projects/gkernel.

For instructions on enabling WoL with Ethtool, refer to the website listed above.

WoL will be enabled on the system during the next shut down or reboot. For this driver version, in order to enable WoL, the e100 driver must be loaded when shutting down or rebooting the system.

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Troubleshooting

Compiling the Driver

When trying to compile the driver by running make install, the following error may occur: "Linux kernel source not configured - missing version.h"

To solve this issue, create the version.h file by going to the Red Hat Linux source tree and entering:

    make include/linux/version.h

Multiple Interfaces on Same Ethernet Broadcast Network

Due to the ARP behavior on Red Hat Linux, it is not possible to have one system on two IP networks in the same Ethernet broadcast domain (non-partitioned switch) behave as expected. All Ethernet interfaces will respond to IP traffic for any IP address assigned to the system. This results in unbalanced receive traffic.

When this occurs, transmits and receives for a single conversation can be split across different network interfaces. Additionally, the server might have up to twice as much transmit capacity as receive capacity, which can result in the receive side being overrun and dropping receives.

If you have multiple interfaces in a server, install them in different switches or partition the switch into VLANs to prevent broadcast traffic from going to the wrong interface. This does not apply when using a teaming solution, like ANS.

Adding an Adapter in Linux

Adding an adapter to your system may cause a change in the interface name (ethx) assignments, due to the order that PCI devices are enumerated by the system BIOS. For example, eth0 may shift to eth1 after an adapter is added to the system, if the new adapter is enumerated before the previously installed adapter.

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Support

For general information and support, check with Customer Support.

If an issue is identified with the released source code on the supported kernel with a supported adapter, email the specific information related to the issue to linux.nics@intel.com.

Please read all restrictions and disclaimers.

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