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Bug 714883

Summary: Solarflare network adapter not available during install
Product: Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Reporter: Robert Stonehouse <rstonehouse>
Component: kernelAssignee: Andy Gospodarek <agospoda>
Status: CLOSED ERRATA QA Contact: Endre "Hrebicek" Balint-Nagy <endre>
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: 6.1CC: atzhang, benl, dcleal, endre, jbastian, jeder, peterm
Target Milestone: rc   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: kernel-2.6.32-192.el6 Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2011-12-06 13:42:54 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Robert Stonehouse 2011-06-21 08:10:44 UTC
[This is a copy of bug 714243 but for the RHEL6 product line]


Description of problem:
  The "sfc.ko" network driver is a kernel modules shipped within the kernel
default RPM(s) that gets installed, but it is not included in the initrd for
the installer.

  This means that Solarflare network interfaces cannot be configured at install
time nor used during the install e.g. for iSCSI based installations


Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
  RHEL6.0 or 6.1 install DVD image, (and pxeboot and xen initrd images)


How reproducible:
  100% (or by inspection)


Steps to Reproduce:
1. Install a Solarflare network adapter (PCI vendor ID 1924)
2. Boot from RHEL6.X 64 bit media (likely to affect other versions as well)
3. Continue through installation


Actual results:
No "sfc.ko" driver is loaded even though PCI devices with matching ID are
present.
No option to configure ethX devices that correspond to network ports on the
Solarflare network adapter


Expected results:
Options to configure all ethX devices that correspond to network ports on the
enumerated Solarflare network adapter(s).
This is what happens for nearly all other networking adapters during install.


Additional info:
Note I work for Solarflare Communications but I followed the instructions on
the account creation page and used a secondary e-mail address (considering this
is a public forum).

Please note that sfc.ko has a small number of dependencies on other modules
  $ grep sfc modules.dep
  modules.dep:sfc: i2c-algo-bit mdio i2c-core mtdpart mtdcore

I have identified these places where there are already a number of network
adapter modules present on the install ISO:
  images/pxeboot/initrd.img

I also note that the "pci.ids" file does not have vendor (1924:) or device IDs
for the network adapters that the sfc.ko driver supports.

Comment 2 Chris Lumens 2011-06-23 14:29:17 UTC
anaconda doesn't need to list most kernel modules explicitly anymore.  As long as sfc.ko is listed in modules.networking (it doesn't appear to be), we'll pick it up.  Reassigning.

Comment 3 Robert Stonehouse 2011-06-24 16:52:19 UTC
Looking at the kernel spec (admittedly for a Fedora14 kernel) I found:
==============================
    collect_modules_list networking \   			 'register_netdev|ieee80211_register_hw|usbnet_probe|phy_driver_register'
==============================

sfc.ko calls "register_netdevice()"  rather than "register_netdev()" which is why it does not end up in modules.networking


Adding register_netdevice into the above call certainly adds sfc.ko to modules.networking; but as I noted in the original comment sfc.ko depends on "mtd,i2c-core,mdio,i2c-algo-bit" and I am unsure what ensures that they are also included in the initrds

Comment 4 Andy Gospodarek 2011-08-12 14:12:08 UTC
This should be a pretty easy fix.  I think once we add register_netdevice to modules.networking that should do it.  I'll test to be sure.

Comment 5 Andy Gospodarek 2011-08-12 16:55:22 UTC
Adding 'register_netdevice' to the collect_modules_list line is pretty easy and does add sfc.ko to modules.networking.  The trick is making sure the other modules are included.

The output of 'modinfo sfc' indicates that these modules are needed for sfc.ko to load:

depends:        i2c-core,mdio,i2c-algo-bit

None of these modules show up in any of the modules.* files, so some symbols will need to be added to account for them.

It looks like adding 'i2c_add_numbered_adapter' will give me 'i2c-algo-bit.ko' (and 'i2c-algo-pca.ko') in the initrd.  These are pretty small 28k total, so that seems reasonable.

There seems to be some magic with how mdio is chosen to load and I haven't quite figured it out yet.  Since other drivers (like ixgbe) depend on mdio it must get included via some others means.

Comment 6 Andy Gospodarek 2011-08-12 17:10:41 UTC
Sorry I forgot to mention the 'i2c-core' module.  I think that will get loaded automatically since we are adding i2c-algo-bit and it depends on i2c-core, but maybe not.  I need to revisit how this works and see if I can remember how to build a test initrd like the installer will use (rather than the one dracut will use that has the kitchen-sink).

Comment 7 Andy Gospodarek 2011-08-12 17:24:10 UTC
OK, so I picked apart the installer initrd from 6.1 and see that mdio, i2c-core, and i2c-algo-bit are already included:

# find . -type f | egrep 'mdio|i2c' 
./net/mdio.ko.gz
./i2c/i2c-core.ko.gz
./i2c/algos/i2c-algo-bit.ko.gz
./i2c/busses/i2c-via.ko.gz
./i2c/busses/i2c-stub.ko.gz

This means we just need to add 'register_netdevice' to the modules.networking file.

Comment 8 RHEL Program Management 2011-08-12 19:50:00 UTC
This request was evaluated by Red Hat Product Management for inclusion
in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux maintenance release. Product Management has 
requested further review of this request by Red Hat Engineering, for potential
inclusion in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Update release for currently deployed 
products. This request is not yet committed for inclusion in an Update release.

Comment 10 Weibing Zhang 2011-08-19 05:34:06 UTC
qa_ack+. 
We do not have Solarflare network adapater in beaker. It would be better to contact the customer to verify this bug, for us. Will the customer test this bug for us?

Comment 13 Robert Stonehouse 2011-08-19 18:42:49 UTC
(In reply to comment #10)
> We do not have Solarflare network adapater in beaker. It would be better to
> contact the customer to verify this bug, for us. Will the customer test this
> bug for us?

Yes; someone at Solarflare would be available to test this
Would you supply updated installation media? or an updated pxeboot initrd+kernel

Many thanks

Comment 15 Aristeu Rozanski 2011-08-24 15:54:03 UTC
Patch(es) available on kernel-2.6.32-192.el6

Comment 18 Endre "Hrebicek" Balint-Nagy 2011-10-10 17:05:42 UTC
On latest livecd (rhevh-6.2-20111010.0.iso) image found a 2.6.32-206.el6.x86_64 kernel, with the

ThinkPink ~ 3553 $ gzip -dc /mnt/isolinux/initrd0.img | cpio -itv| fgrep sfc
drwxr-xr-x   2 root     root            0 Oct 10 15:45 lib/modules/2.6.32-206.el6.x86_64/kernel/drivers/net/sfc
-rwxr--r--   1 root     root       329600 Oct  4 18:39 lib/modules/2.6.32-206.el6.x86_64/kernel/drivers/net/sfc/sfc.ko

sfc module in the initrd0.img.
This is OK for SanityOnly.
I don't know a bootable image is ever built with the 192.el6 kernel, will investigate further.

Comment 19 errata-xmlrpc 2011-12-06 13:42:54 UTC
Since the problem described in this bug report should be
resolved in a recent advisory, it has been closed with a
resolution of ERRATA.

For information on the advisory, and where to find the updated
files, follow the link below.

If the solution does not work for you, open a new bug report.

http://rhn.redhat.com/errata/RHSA-2011-1530.html