2.6.27 Kernel Killing Network Hardware

[phoronix]

Phoronix: 2.6.27 Kernel Killing Network Hardware

In case you missed it, there's a rather serious regression with the e1000e network driver in the Linux 2.6.27 release candidate kernels. This Ethernet driver has been killing some Intel integrated Gigabit network adapters by corrupting the chip's EEPROM...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=Njc0Nw

[Kano]

Just a little correction for Ubuntu, there is not the mainline driver used, but

filename: /lib/modules/2.6.27-4-generic/kernel/ubuntu/e1000e/e1000e.ko
author: Intel Corporation, <linux.nics@intel.com>
description: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver
license: GPL
version: 0.4.1.7

But it seems to suffer from the same problem. That problem is nothing new, basically every distro with 2.6.27 kernel is affected and the first corruption I knew of was about 1 month ago already. Hopefully there will be a tool that can flash the eeprom back with working values...

[shamooki]

I found it confusing that the article states that it's the mainline kernel which is affected - in fact, it's the RC, which is not a production version. Moreover, it does not impact all major Linux distributions, but rather their current beta versions.

I think that should be made clear in order to minimize FUD emission which this bug caused too much of already anyway.

[Michael]

I think that should be made clear in order to minimize FUD emission which this bug caused too much of already anyway.

Apologizes if it wasn't clear enough, it's just been revised.

[blueskynis]

I found it confusing that the article states that it's the mainline kernel which is affected - in fact, it's the RC, which is not a production version. Moreover, it does not impact all major Linux distributions, but rather their current beta versions.

I think that should be made clear in order to minimize FUD emission which this bug caused too much of already anyway.

Good point

[bruno08]

"Intel netcard suiciding on concurrent read/write"

As little research as I did.
No?

[ethana2]

Ok wait, so is any physical damage caused to the hardware, or is it just made not-functional until certain bit states are fixed?

[blueskynis]

As I understand there is no physical damage, to return to working state you only must reprogram eeprom back to its default state.

[deanjo]

As I understand there is no physical damage, to return to working state you only must reprogram eeprom back to its default state.

From what I've heard this is not 100% the case. Some who have tried say that results in a MAC address of 00-00-00-00-00.

[bulletxt]

"you only must reprogram eeprom ": for 99,9% of users that sentence means = dead card.

but it's also true that a user that's running 2.6.27rc must be at least a user that understands a minimum of "computer things" so he's able somehow to reflash it.

If something like this happens for example with an Ubuntu stable release, oh well, I couldn't blame if Microsoft pays some newspaper to FUD about it..lol