Questions[realtek](server)

I have an RTL8125B-CG NIC which, from what I gather from their product page, has hardware support for PTP. However, sudo ethtool -T does not detect any HW timestamping capabilities.

I've tried with the r8169 driver and with the r8125 driver from Realtek (both this one from Github and this one from Realtek's download page), but without success. In the Makefile in the source code, there seems to be a flag which indicate that PTP support is not enabled by default, but when I enable this flag I can't compile (I get the error presented in this issue).

Anyone have any experience or know what I can do to get PTP support enabled?

I'm running Ubuntu 20.04 and the 5.11.0-36-generic kernel.

We want to use 2 double port ethetnet card in lenovo M720e. cards are dexlan ref FG-ENW02C-1-UC04 / pcie 1x dual giga ports.

we install debian 10. we change grub so we have ethX and not enpXs0. first card on pcie x16 port second card on pcie x1 port (no more pcie slot on motherboard) after booting we have

eth0 = card 1 port 1

eth1 = card 1 port 2

eth2 = card 2 port 1

eth3 = card 2 port 2

eth4 = integrated card

all card are realteck Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 15)

we configure ip address on all eth.

we install r8168-dmks firmware-realtek on debian and use standard kernel. (4.19.xx)

now the problem we use direct cable to a pc with linux . change change ip address on his ether card for each tests.

test en eth0 eth1 and eth4 ping / ssh / scp all OK test on eth2 and eth3 ping ok / ssh not ok then ping not ok

so to be clear : we boot the lenovo , we plug a cable on eth3 ( or eth2) we ping the ip address on eth3 ( or eth2) , ping ok , we try ssh from linux pc to the lenovo no prompt for password nor to accept fingerprint , ctrl-C , try to ping the ip address on eth3 ( or eth2) no ping anymore.

so we make tcpdump to see what happen :

linux pc : 10.98.127.45/24
lenovo pc : 10.98.127.10/24

on linux pc : ping 10.98.127.10 (the problem is here for more thant 5 minutes so need arp reply to work)

tcpdump on pc

12:24:21.302314 ARP, Request who-has 10.98.127.10 tell 10.98.127.45, length 28
12:24:22.333931 ARP, Request who-has 10.98.127.10 tell 10.98.127.45, length 28
12:24:23.357882 ARP, Request who-has 10.98.127.10 tell 10.98.127.45, length 28

tcpdump on lenovo :

12:24:21.301014 ARP, Request who-has 10.98.127.10 tell 10.98.127.45, length 46
12:24:21.301026 ARP, Reply 10.98.127.10 is-at 00:13:3b:4a:d7:7a, length 28
12:24:22.332649 ARP, Request who-has 10.98.127.10 tell 10.98.127.45, length 46
12:24:22.332660 ARP, Reply 10.98.127.10 is-at 00:13:3b:4a:d7:7a, length 28
12:24:23.356628 ARP, Request who-has 10.98.127.10 tell 10.98.127.45, length 46
12:24:23.356639 ARP, Reply 10.98.127.10 is-at 00:13:3b:4a:d7:7a, length 28

so we think that this is a problem on TX on eth3 in the lenovo pc

to get the ping working ( btu stop working if we try to ssh again )

on lenovo PC :

ip link set eth3 down ; ip link set eth3 up

we try thinks

• use debian backport to install r8168-dkms , firmware-realtek
• use debian backport to install 5.8 kernel
• unplug the working pcie card on the x16 slot
• replace the not working card with another one (we have 10+ of these card )
• in the lenovo bios deactivate integrated network card , vt-d , vt-x
• replace buster with stretch (same result)

each time we test and each time it's fail .

does anyone have ideas about that ?

I try to be complete but may be I forgot some tests/changes we made. Sorry for my bad english

Nicolas

I tried setting up Mode 0 NIC bonding using ifenslave between my Ethernet and WiFi cards on Debian 10.

After numerous ifconfig wls1 up/down, I was able to set up Bond0 until it stopped working. After undoing the setup, I realized ifconfig wls1 up wasn't loading the WiFi adapter's firmware anymore (rtk8192ee)

:~$ sudo dmesg | grep firmware

[5.201360] rtl8192ee: Using firmware rtlwifi/rtl8192eefw.bin

[5.201745] rtl8192ee 0000:24:00.0: firmware: failed to load rtlwifi/rtl8192eefw.bin (-2)

[5.201799] firmware_class: See https://wiki.debian.org/Firmware for information about missing firmware

[5.201845] rtl8192ee 0000:24:00.0: Direct firmware load for rtlwifi/rtl8192eefw.bin failed with error -2

I know I'm not missing the firmware because it was working before. Could this be a NetworkManager bug?

Please see my /etc/network/interfacesfile below

source /etc/network/interfaces.d/*

auto lo

iface lo inet loopback

Any ideas why the firmware is acting up?

I need to support the realtek rtl8139 network card - is this included in modern (> 3.0) linux kernels? do I have to load any modules or install anything?