CentOS - Jun 2009 - RealTek 8168B (Rev 02) Issue

The 8168B (02) NIC works well except that it does not go into promiscuous 
mode despite advertising itself in that mode after being so directed with 
ifconfig. Unfortunately, the little box is destined to be an IDS monitor, so
that
function is essential. The board is an Intel Atom  330 run as x86_64, the nic 
is 
internal. 

We tried three drivers: the one in the 2.6.18-128.1.10.el5 kernel yields a 
high 
count of dropped packets (known problem), and the drivers from Realtek 
and 
El Repo. None solve the promiscuous problem (although they fix the funny 
dropped counter issue).

Apparently the chip has no MII capability either. 

Anyone have any idea as how to make this chip do the promiscuous mode 
thing other than adding another nic card ?

Ben Mohilef wrote:
> The 8168B (02) NIC works well except that it does not go into promiscuous
> mode despite advertising itself in that mode after being so directed with
> ifconfig. Unfortunately, the little box is destined to be an IDS monitor,
so that
> function is essential. The board is an Intel Atom  330 run as x86_64, the
nic
> is internal.
I presume you are talking about a Atom 230 not a Atom 330, as on the an 
original Intel board with an Atom 330, the D945GCLF2 you can just use 
the r8169 driver, on the D945GCLF with an Atom 230 board you need a 
r8101 driver

Intel D945GCLF2 (Atom 330)
* /etc/modprobe.conf
> alias scsi_hostadapter ata_piix
> alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
> options snd-card-0 index=0
> options snd-hda-intel index=0
> remove snd-hda-intel { /usr/sbin/alsactl store 0 >/dev/null 2>&1
|| : ; }; /sbi$
> alias eth0 r8169
* lspci output
> 01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168B
PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller (rev 02)
Intel D945GCLF (Atom 230)
* /etc/modprobe.conf
> alias scsi_hostadapter ata_piix
> alias snd-card-0 snd-hda-intel
> options snd-card-0 index=0
> options snd-hda-intel index=0
> remove snd-hda-intel { /usr/sbin/alsactl store 0 >/dev/null 2>&1
|| : ; }; /sbi$
> alias eth0 r8101
> alias eth1 pegasus
* lspci
> 01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)
> None solve the promiscuous problem (although they fix the funny
> dropped counter issue).
> [...]
> Anyone have any idea as how to make this chip do the promiscuous mode
> thing other than adding another nic card ?
If it is an original Intel board D945GCLF with the Atom 230, I suggest 
downloading the driver from the Intel website
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProductID=2916&DwnldID=16242&strOSs=39&OSFullName=Linux*&lang=eng
I compiled the driver manually (at the time elrepo didn't exist) from 
the Intel website, it has been working fine, and I regularly check my 
tcpdump, dmesg even states that it enter promiscuous mode and
exits
> device eth0 entered promiscuous mode
> device eth0 left promiscuous mode
only thing I did that wasn't in the manual is manually delete the r8169 
drivers of my kernel, I did have problem when I didn't do this


-- 
Toshaan <toshlinux at gmail.com> - http://www.toshaan.be