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Sam
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Hello, the forum.

So, with the recent release of COS 7.1, I got all excited and tried to bring it up on one of my 3 identical gateway boxen that I routinely use for such experiments. They are all the same basic configuration - one onboard Realtek NIC and two Netgear FA311-TX v.3 cards on an LSI MoBo based machine with 4G RAM and a Core 2 Quad proc. Yeah, it's kinda old hardware but it runs CentOS, RHEL and ClearOS pretty well.

Or, at least, it did; for, much to my disappointment, it seems that for some reason the COS 7.1 distro no longer includes the venerable 'natsemi' module for the Netgear FA-311 cards.

In 6.7, it shows up:


[root@clearlygpt ~]# lspci -nn
.
.
.
04:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: National Semiconductor Corporation DP83815 (MacPhyter) Ethernet Controller [100b:0020]


[root@clearlygpt ~]# grep -i 100b /lib/modules/*/modules.alias |grep -i 0020
alias pci:v0000100Bd00000020sv*sd*bc*sc*i* natsemi
alias pci:v0000100Bd00000020sv000012D9sd0000000Cbc*sc*i* natsemi

[root@clearlygpt ~]# modinfo natsemi
filename: /lib/modules/2.6.32-573.1.1.v6.x86_64/kernel/drivers/net/natsemi.ko
license: GPL
description: National Semiconductor DP8381x series PCI Ethernet driver
author: Donald Becker <becker@scyld.com>
srcversion: 362F7BDEB00776D3D405BB4
alias: pci:v0000100Bd00000020sv*sd*bc*sc*i*
alias: pci:v0000100Bd00000020sv000012D9sd0000000Cbc*sc*i*
depends:
vermagic: 2.6.32-573.1.1.v6.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions
parm: mtu:DP8381x MTU (all boards) (int)
parm: debug:DP8381x default debug level (int)
parm: rx_copybreak:DP8381x copy breakpoint for copy-only-tiny-frames (int)
parm: dspcfg_workaround:DP8381x: control DspCfg workaround (int)
parm: options:DP8381x: Bits 0-3: media type, bit 17: full duplex (array of int)
parm: full_duplex:DP8381x full duplex setting(s) (1) (array of int)


But it's completely gone in 7.1. The PCI system still initializes the cards properly, but there's no driver for modprobe to find and load. I couldn't find a built one anywhere.

This sucks. I don't have enough experience with the 3.x kernel, but it appears that the whole modinfo/modprobe mechanism has changed. I tried to find what I needed looking around CentOS and RHEL fora, but had no luck.

So, can anyone tell me a) why it is gone now, and/or b) how can I get a built one or some working code I can set up so it will load when the system finds the card?

This is especially frustrating because TI still sells this chip and some companies still use it, witness: http://www.ti.com/product/dp83815

I don't have any other systems I can use to do this, nor do I have time to re-configure everything. I have saved configurations from ClearOS 6.7 that I should be able to use to bring these boxes up quickly. It's kind of a standard testing platform for me, but currently shot to hell because I can't use the new OS.

Thanks in advance,
~LD
Saturday, December 26 2015, 12:22 PM

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  • Accepted Answer

    Derrik
    Derrik
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    Saturday, August 20 2016, 06:49 PM - #Permalink
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    *sigh* me too.. in the process of 'upgrading' from 6, my natsemi card(s) (yes, plural) are inop. I am going to attempt to build/install the module. wish me luck.
    Let see, should I locate a supported NIC first, or sync a local mirror (so as to get the devel packages); unless, can they be installed from the installation DVD?.. decisions decisions.

    UPDATE: Yay! it built, and it works. I'll post the details, later; now is nap-time.

    UPDATE: (6 mo. later) you can grab my tar file here: http://derrik.net/cc5/natsemi-clearos7.2.tar
    I no longer remember the details of how I configured the source, but.. here's to hoping it helps someone. (most likely, that someone will be me, again, in a few years.)
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  • Accepted Answer

    Sam
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    Sunday, April 24 2016, 06:50 PM - #Permalink
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    ... well, just FYI, as promised, I am reporting on getting 7.2 running in a Hyper-V VM.

    See this post: Bootloader Config Fail (conversation)
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  • Accepted Answer

    Sam
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    Monday, January 25 2016, 08:09 PM - #Permalink
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    @Tony Ellis:

    Yeah, well, wishful thinking, I suppose. I have a pile of these machines which I am going to use one way or the other, so I might as well take this on.

    If there's enough interest, I can put the results up on DropBox for others to use.

    Thanks for the info and assistance.
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  • Accepted Answer

    Sunday, January 24 2016, 12:06 AM - #Permalink
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    Don't think you will be at all successful in persuading Redfhat to re-instate the natsemi driver... See
    https://linux.web.cern.ch/linux/rhel/releasenotes/RELEASE-NOTES-7.0-x86_64/#removed-packages
    and scroll down to the section entitled "Networking Drivers" within Section 4.4. Discontinued Kernel Drivers, Modules and Features. Redhat cleaned out something like 80+ drivers for old NICs for version 7.0 that are no longer in production or not used in modern enterprise servers... that list includes natsemi.

    So, as Nick has suggested, you are on your own. If the driver you want hasn't already been added to elrepo (some drivers removed from the distribution have been -re-created and available at http://elrepo.org/linux/elrepo/el7/x86_64/RPMS/ ), then elrepo will consider requests for additions via their bug tracker http://elrepo.org/bugs/main_page.php - more information via their mailing lists and web-site...
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  • Accepted Answer

    Sam
    Sam
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    Saturday, January 23 2016, 10:07 PM - #Permalink
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    Thanks, Nick Howitt.

    I will definitely do this and try to get a build. If I do and it all works, do you think there's a snowball's chance in hell that the folks in charge of the distro might be persuaded to include it in an update? I guess I need to look at the mechanism for proposing updates (I know there is one, I just haven't read it yet. Lotta stuff to do.)

    Also, just to complicate matters, I'm doing all this on my work computer in a Windows 10 Hyper-V VM :p Supposedly, the upstream distro (CentOS 7) includes LIS 4 built-in, so if I turn off secure boot I should be able to get this to work.

    When/if I find out more, I will post it to the community. Esp. if it works. ;)

    Thanks for the help.
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  • Accepted Answer

    Monday, January 18 2016, 09:43 PM - #Permalink
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    I had a look when you first posted and could not find out much about natsemi and when it was removed from the (upstream) kernel.

    To build your own, start here. I would not bother with installing an editor unless you want to. ClearOS has vi (yuck!) and nano (better) or you can use the editor in WinSCP (built-in or something like notepad++). Go as far as running "clearos setup" which will create a bunch of things for you.

    In your source it may have a readme or some other form of instructions which may build the module directly (perhaps "make" and "make install") or you can look ar rpmbuild to build an rpm to install.

    One thing to bear in mind is that you will need to recompile the program every time the kernel goes through a minor kernel upgrade so you may want to block automatic kernel upgrades by adding "exclude=kernel*" to /etc/yum.conf. You can then re-allow them in a controlled way.
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  • Accepted Answer

    Sam
    Sam
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    Monday, January 18 2016, 08:29 PM - #Permalink
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    How about this, then - anyone have any idea or pointers to a HOWTO or some instructions as to how I might add the driver to a 3.x kernel from sources? I think I have found sources, but it seems a lot has changed from last time I did this (back in the 2.5.x days!) so any help would be appreciated. Just need to get up and building, I'll take it from there.
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