Linux networking with Realtek RTL8139C

ha ha well spent all day on this one.

The card to all intents and purposes appears to be working at the
hardware level i.e. detected properly at startup, mii-tool says it can
negotiate 100Mbps full duplex (the card on the other end of the crossover
cable, Windows box, is also capable of this)

rtl8139-diag says it is a C chipset card and gives lots of meaningful
output.

I have been told variously (depending on documentation) that I need
8139too, 8139cp or rtl8139 as the driver. Debian [3.0r2] seems to be
loading rtl8139 even though there is nothing in /etc/modules.conf for it.
This was an option selected at install time.

Apparently for 8139C chipset I need 8139cp, how do I get it to use that
instead of rtl8139 which is being loaded by some inscrutable means at
startup and which apparently isn't working?

By working I mean that I can't ping the Windows machine or vice versa,
which should be possible?

The lights are on on the card on the Windows machine, so there seems to
be the low level cable connection working correctly.

The Windows machine has Netbios over TCP enabled, static IP address
192.168.0.2, file and print sharing bound to TCP/IP, can ping itself.
Linux machine has the address 192.168.0.1 and can ping itself OK.

Here are the outputs of some commands tried on the system:

rtl8139-diag:
rtl8139-diag.c:v2.12 12/03/2003 Donald Becker ((E-Mail Removed))
http://www.scyld.com/diag/index.html
Index #1: Found a RealTek RTL8139 adapter at 0xfc00.
Realtek station address 00:05:1c:19:df:f4, chip type 'rtl8139C'.
Receiver configuration: Normal unicast and hashed multicast
Rx FIFO threshold 256 bytes, maximum burst 256 bytes, 64KB ring
Transmitter enabled with NONSTANDARD! settings, maximum burst 256
bytes.
Flow control: Tx disabled Rx disabled.
The chip configuration is 0x14 0x6c, MII full-duplex mode.
No interrupt sources are pending.
Use '-a' or '-aa' to show device registers,
'-e' to show EEPROM contents, -ee for parsed contents,
or '-m' or '-mm' to show MII management registers.

ifconfig:
eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:05:1C:19F:F4
inet addr:192.168.0.1 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:107 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
RX bytes:8256 (8.0 KiB) TX bytes:23371 (22.8 KiB)
Interrupt:10 Base address:0xfc00

lo Link encap:Local Loopback
inet addr:127.0.0.1 Mask:255.0.0.0
UP LOOPBACK RUNNING MTU:3924 Metric:1
RX packets:47 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:47 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:3511 (3.4 KiB) TX bytes:3511 (3.4 KiB)

tap0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr FE:FD:00:00:00:00
inet addr:192.168.0.1 Bcast:0.0.0.0 Mask:255.255.255.255
UP BROADCAST RUNNING NOARP MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
TX packets:10 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
collisions:0 txqueuelen:0
RX bytes:0 (0.0 b) TX bytes:1000 (1000.0 b)
Interrupt:5

mii-tool:
eth0: negotiated 100baseTx-FD, link ok

Where to from here?






--
Full featured open source Win32 newsreader - Gravity 2.70
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpgravity/

On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 00:00:39 +1300, Mainlander wrote:

> ha ha well spent all day on this one.
>
> The card to all intents and purposes appears to be working at the
> hardware level i.e. detected properly at startup, mii-tool says it can
> negotiate 100Mbps full duplex (the card on the other end of the crossover
> cable, Windows box, is also capable of this)
>
> rtl8139-diag says it is a C chipset card and gives lots of meaningful
> output.

I have a card with the same chipset here.

> I have been told variously (depending on documentation) that I need
> 8139too, 8139cp or rtl8139 as the driver. Debian [3.0r2] seems to be
> loading rtl8139 even though there is nothing in /etc/modules.conf for it.
> This was an option selected at install time.

I am using the 8139too module with hotplug.

> Apparently for 8139C chipset I need 8139cp, how do I get it to use that
> instead of rtl8139 which is being loaded by some inscrutable means at
> startup and which apparently isn't working?
>
> By working I mean that I can't ping the Windows machine or vice versa,
> which should be possible?

From your ifconfig output it looks like it works.

> The lights are on on the card on the Windows machine, so there seems to
> be the low level cable connection working correctly.
>
> The Windows machine has Netbios over TCP enabled, static IP address
> 192.168.0.2, file and print sharing bound to TCP/IP, can ping itself.
> Linux machine has the address 192.168.0.1 and can ping itself OK.

Just a thought, but if this is a WinXP machine, make sure you've not got
the built in firewall enabled.

> Where to from here?

Can the linux machine ping itself on its 192 address?
Failing that, perhaps try the 8139too driver?

--
-Geoff

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Mainlander <*@*.*> wrote:
> ha ha well spent all day on this one.

> The card to all intents and purposes appears to be working at the
> hardware level i.e. detected properly at startup, mii-tool says it can
> negotiate 100Mbps full duplex (the card on the other end of the crossover
> cable, Windows box, is also capable of this)

> rtl8139-diag says it is a C chipset card and gives lots of meaningful
> output.

> I have been told variously (depending on documentation) that I need
> 8139too, 8139cp or rtl8139 as the driver. Debian [3.0r2] seems to be
> loading rtl8139 even though there is nothing in /etc/modules.conf for it.
> This was an option selected at install time.

'8139too' is the driver that comes with the kernel for this card
and works perfectly.

> ifconfig:
> eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:05:1C:19F:F4
> inet addr:192.168.0.1 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
> UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
> RX packets:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
> TX packets:107 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
> collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
> RX bytes:8256 (8.0 KiB) TX bytes:23371 (22.8 KiB)
> Interrupt:10 Base address:0xfc00

Looks good!

[..]

> tap0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr FE:FD:00:00:00:00
> inet addr:192.168.0.1 Bcast:0.0.0.0 Mask:255.255.255.255

You can't have the same IP on two devices, unless you did
bond them which you didn't.

That might be the problem in addition look at the output of
'netstat -rn', for the kernel routing table.

Good luck

- --
Michael Heiming (GPG-Key ID: 0xEDD27B94)

Remove +SIGNS and www. if you expect an answer, sorry for
inconvenience, but I get tons of spam.
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQFAM6lsAkPEju3Se5QRAq17AKDMPUgbfCDkmCgVeNy18o UJMCu2SACaA/aY
P7D8IF6ZvWpoyjOOfKvpJ6M=
=uh61
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

Mainlander <*@*.*> wrote:

> Apparently for 8139C chipset I need 8139cp, how do I get it to use
> that instead of rtl8139 which is being loaded by some inscrutable
> means at startup and which apparently isn't working?

8139cp is for the RTL8139C+ chipset and won't work with the RTL8139C. I
found 8139too to be working best with this chipset.


Christian

--
Endlich Linux! - http://mundoss.de

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, michael+(E-Mail Removed)
says...
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Mainlander <*@*.*> wrote:
> > ha ha well spent all day on this one.
>
> > The card to all intents and purposes appears to be working at the
> > hardware level i.e. detected properly at startup, mii-tool says it can
> > negotiate 100Mbps full duplex (the card on the other end of the crossover
> > cable, Windows box, is also capable of this)
>
> > rtl8139-diag says it is a C chipset card and gives lots of meaningful
> > output.
>
> > I have been told variously (depending on documentation) that I need
> > 8139too, 8139cp or rtl8139 as the driver. Debian [3.0r2] seems to be
> > loading rtl8139 even though there is nothing in /etc/modules.conf for it.
> > This was an option selected at install time.
>
> '8139too' is the driver that comes with the kernel for this card
> and works perfectly.

How do I get it to not load rtl8139 and load 8139too instead?

>
> > ifconfig:
> > eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:05:1C:19F:F4
> > inet addr:192.168.0.1 Bcast:192.168.0.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
> > UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
> > RX packets:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0
> > TX packets:107 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
> > collisions:0 txqueuelen:100
> > RX bytes:8256 (8.0 KiB) TX bytes:23371 (22.8 KiB)
> > Interrupt:10 Base address:0xfc00
>
> Looks good!
>
> [..]
>
> > tap0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr FE:FD:00:00:00:00
> > inet addr:192.168.0.1 Bcast:0.0.0.0 Mask:255.255.255.255
>
> You can't have the same IP on two devices, unless you did
> bond them which you didn't.
>
> That might be the problem in addition look at the output of
> 'netstat -rn', for the kernel routing table.

Kernel IP routing table
Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt
Iface
192.168.0.2 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0
tap0
192.168.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0
eth0
0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 U 0 0 0 tap0


--
Full featured open source Win32 newsreader - Gravity 2.70
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpgravity/

In article <slrnc37g28.q6.krist-(E-Mail Removed)>, krist-
(E-Mail Removed) says...
> Mainlander <*@*.*> wrote:
>
> > Apparently for 8139C chipset I need 8139cp, how do I get it to use
> > that instead of rtl8139 which is being loaded by some inscrutable
> > means at startup and which apparently isn't working?
>
> 8139cp is for the RTL8139C+ chipset and won't work with the RTL8139C. I
> found 8139too to be working best with this chipset.

OK so where is it loading rtl8139 and how do I get it not to, and load
8139too instead?

--
Full featured open source Win32 newsreader - Gravity 2.70
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpgravity/

In comp.os.linux.networking Mainlander wrote:

> OK so where is it loading rtl8139 and how do I get it not to, and load
> 8139too instead?

Are you really using the stock Debian 3.0 kernel (2.4.18-bf2.4)? rtl8139
is not included by default but 8139too is compiled into the default
kernel. What does 'lsmod' and 'dmesg | grep 8139' show you?

This is an example from a box equipped with a RTL8139C based board and
running a stock Debian woody (3.0) kernel:

# dmesg | grep 8139
8139cp 10/100 PCI Ethernet driver v0.0.6 (Nov 19, 2001)
8139cp: pci dev 00:10.0 (id 10ec:8139 rev 10) is not an 8139C+ compatible chip
8139cp: Try the "8139too" driver instead.
8139too Fast Ethernet driver 0.9.24
eth0: RealTek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet at 0xc281a000, 00:50:bf:e0:89:81, IRQ 9
eth0: Identified 8139 chip type 'RTL-8139C'


Christian

--
Endlich Linux! - http://mundoss.de

On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 00:00:39 +1300, Mainlander wrote:

> Where to from here?

Don't know very much (yet) about networking under linux, but for my
RTL8139C I had to use the "fealnx" driver to get it to work, and _not_ any
of the 8139* "recommended" ones.

Actually, to get my setup to work, I booted to knoppix which setup my card
perfectly and then I copied down the settings!

HTH

-H

In article <slrnc37lo9.1c0.krist-(E-Mail Removed)>, krist-
(E-Mail Removed) says...
> In comp.os.linux.networking Mainlander wrote:
>
> > OK so where is it loading rtl8139 and how do I get it not to, and load
> > 8139too instead?
>
> Are you really using the stock Debian 3.0 kernel (2.4.18-bf2.4)?

2.2.20 (installed by Debian 3.0r2)
Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 r2 "Woody" - Official i386 Binary-2 CD (vanilla)

> rtl8139
> is not included by default but 8139too is compiled into the default
> kernel. What does 'lsmod' and 'dmesg | grep 8139' show you?

rtl8139.c:v1.07 5/6/99 Donald Becker
http://cesdis.gsfc.nasa.gov/linux/drivers/rtl8139.html
eth0: RealTek RTL8139 Fast Ethernet at 0xfc00, IRQ 10, 00:05:1c:19:df:f4.

Module Size Used by
nls_cp437 3896 0 (autoclean)
vfat 9428 0 (autoclean)
tap0 2236 1 (autoclean)
lockd 42420 0 (autoclean) (unused)
sunrpc 57816 0 (autoclean) [lockd]
rtl8139 11184 1
af_packet 6152 1
unix 11352 6 (autoclean)

The driver I downloaded is 1.23 dated 2003
--
Full featured open source Win32 newsreader - Gravity 2.70
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpgravity/

On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 09:54:26 +1300, Mainlander wrote:

> In article <(E-Mail Removed)>, michael+(E-Mail Removed)
> says...
>> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> Hash: SHA1
>>
>> Mainlander <*@*.*> wrote:
>> > ha ha well spent all day on this one.
>>
>> > The card to all intents and purposes appears to be working at the
>> > hardware level i.e. detected properly at startup, mii-tool says it can
>> > negotiate 100Mbps full duplex (the card on the other end of the crossover
>> > cable, Windows box, is also capable of this)
>>
>> > rtl8139-diag says it is a C chipset card and gives lots of meaningful
>> > output.
>>
>> > I have been told variously (depending on documentation) that I need
>> > 8139too, 8139cp or rtl8139 as the driver. Debian [3.0r2] seems to be
>> > loading rtl8139 even though there is nothing in /etc/modules.conf for it.
>> > This was an option selected at install time.
>>
>> '8139too' is the driver that comes with the kernel for this card
>> and works perfectly.
>
> How do I get it to not load rtl8139 and load 8139too instead?
As root:

rmmod rtl8139
modprobe 8139too

See if that makes a diff. If it does, then if the driver is loading on
boot, and it's not from modules.conf, then it is being loaded out of one
of your init scripts. Have a look in /etc/rc.d (assuming that's where
debian keeps its init scripts). Alternatively, put the above lines at
the end of /etc/rc.d/rc.local.

Good luck.
>
>
>> > ifconfig:
>> > eth0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:05:1C:19F:F4
>> > inet addr:192.168.0.1 Bcast:192.168.0.255
>> > Mask:255.255.255.0 UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500
>> > Metric:1 RX packets:32 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0
>> > frame:0 TX packets:107 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0
>> > carrier:0 collisions:0 txqueuelen:100 RX bytes:8256 (8.0
>> > KiB) TX bytes:23371 (22.8 KiB) Interrupt:10 Base
>> > address:0xfc00
>>
>> Looks good!
>>
>> [..]
>>
>> > tap0 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr FE:FD:00:00:00:00
>> > inet addr:192.168.0.1 Bcast:0.0.0.0 Mask:255.255.255.255
>>
>> You can't have the same IP on two devices, unless you did bond them
>> which you didn't.
>>
>> That might be the problem in addition look at the output of 'netstat
>> -rn', for the kernel routing table.
>
> Kernel IP routing table
> Destination Gateway Genmask Flags MSS Window irtt
> Iface
> 192.168.0.2 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.255 UH 0 0 0
> tap0
> 192.168.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0
> eth0
> 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 0.0.0.0 U 0 0 0
> tap0

Matt