Re: [Etherboot-users] forcedeth results in disabled nvidia ethernet

[Henry <hjs...@fl...>]

Tim et al,

Thanks!

I wasn't aware that there's an open source nForce network 
driver!  Replacing nvnet (nVidia's driver) with forcedeth compiled directly 
into the kernel did the trick.

I used kernel 2.4.26 which includes the latest version of forcedeth (the 
forcedeth page at hailfinger.org says that the latest forcedeth versions 
are in kernel releases, not as patches from the forcedeth web page).

I haven't tried modifying the forcedeth code in etherboot to try to power 
down the card (as you described in a separate message).  I want to give it 
a go in the future so that I can compare network performance between the 
nvnet and forcedeth drivers.  However, that has to wait until I get the 
rest of this cluster up!

Thanks again, Tim.

Henry



At 06:00 AM 7/24/2004, Timothy Legge wrote:
>On Fri, 2004-07-23 at 23:15, Henry wrote:
>[snip]
> > I can successfully boot my nodes with either etherboot 5.2.4 or 5.3.8, but
> > the built-in nvidia network interface doesn't work once linux is
> > loaded.  If I try to manually load in the needed modules with
> >       insmod nvnet
> >
> > I receive a series of insignificant warnings and then a significant error:
> >       ERROR: nvenet_probe, unable to create adapter object
> >       /lib/modules/2.4.21-15.0.3.EL.c0/kernel/drivers/net/nvnet.o: 
> init_module:
> > No such device
>
>I wrote the forcedeth driver but I have never tested it with the nvnet
>driver in linux.  I always used the open source forcedeth driver.
>
> > I investigated my module and pci device configuration files, but I 
> couldn't
> > find anything wrong.  So I put a 3com ethernet card into the system and
> > booted off of it using a new etherboot ROM image for the 3com card, but an
> > unchanged linux nbi file.  The nvidia ethernet interface worked!  The 3com
> > interface also worked.
>
>The forcedeth driver leaves the card in a powered up state (so does the
>forcedeth linux driver).  It is possible that the nVidia driver cannot
>cope with a card that is already powered up.
>
> > Does this mean that etherboot isn't properly "releasing" something in the
> > nvidia interface after it loads the nbi?  I noticed that the etherboot nic
> > table says that there's a "working" nForce driver in 5.3.7, implying that
> > the driver in 5.2.4 was buggy.  I've tried 5.3.8 through rom-o-matic,
> > however, and that didn't work either.
>
>Nope, ignore that both 5.2.4 and 5.3.8 are the same driver.
>
> > I think I'll try different options in rom-o-matic and then compiling the
> > latest etherboot from CVS locally. Any advice on the forcedeth driver and
> > this matter in general would be greatly appreciated!
>
>Your best bet is trying the linux forcedeth driver but you will need to
>patch your 2.4 kernel with the files from:
>
>http://www.hailfinger.org/carldani/linux/patches/forcedeth/
>
>If that is no good, you could try asking nVidia for help.  I would be
>quite surprised if you receive any though.
>
>Tim