BL460c G6 running SLES10 SP2

[Allen Huang_1]

I've been trying most of the day to find a working NIC driver for this BL460c G6 blade.

I have tried tg3, e1000e, bnx2x, and igb from the HP support site and the psp-8.40 for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2, but I still have no luck. Here is the site where I downloaded the drivers: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=3884099&prodTypeId=3709945&prodSeriesId=3884098&swLang=13&taskId=135&swEnvOID=2065#11395

Would you please help me to quickly find a working driver?

[Gerardo Arceri]

We use the bnx2x driver shipped with RedHat 5.3+ kernel, no need to install any additional drivers, have in mind that RHEL kernel is way older (2.6.18.xxx), so SLES10 SP2 should properly support the card.
Can you please show me the "lscpi -v" output for the ethernet card so i can compare against our 460g6s ?

This is what lscpi -v shows for our onboard network ports:
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme II BCM57711E 10-Gigabit PCIe
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company NC532i Dual Port 10GbE Multifunction BL-C Adapter
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 146
Memory at fb000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8M]
Memory at fa800000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8M]
[virtual] Expansion ROM at e6000000 [disabled] [size=64K]
Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 3
Capabilities: [50] Vital Product Data
Capabilities: [58] Message Signalled Interrupts: 64bit+ Queue=0/3 Enable-
Capabilities: [a0] MSI-X: Enable+ Mask- TabSize=17
Capabilities: [ac] Express Endpoint IRQ 0
Capabilities: [100] Device Serial Number b8-a4-de-fe-ff-85-d3-d8
Capabilities: [110] Advanced Error Reporting
Capabilities: [150] Power Budgeting
Capabilities: [160] Virtual Channel

And this is showing that the driver gets loaded and functioning:

Broadcom NetXtreme II 5771x 10Gigabit Ethernet Driver bnx2x 1.52.1-6 (2010/02/16)
bnx2x: part number 412F4E-0-0-0
bnx2x: Loading bnx2x-e1h-5.2.13.0.fw
bnx2x: part number 412F4E-0-0-0
bnx2x: Loading bnx2x-e1h-5.2.13.0.fw
bnx2x: eth1: using MSI-X IRQs: sp 162 fp[0] 178 ... fp[14] 99
bnx2x: eth1 NIC Link is Down
bnx2x: eth1 NIC Link is Up, 1000 Mbps full duplex, receive flow control ON
bnx2x: eth0: using MSI-X IRQs: sp 139 fp[0] 155 ... fp[14] 76
bnx2x: eth0 NIC Link is Down
bnx2x: eth0 NIC Link is Up, 1000 Mbps full duplex, receive flow control ON

and this is ethtool -i eth0 output for the same server.

root@rhelbox:~ # ethtool -i eth0
driver: bnx2x
version: 1.52.1-6
firmware-version: BC:5.2.7 PHY:baa0:0105
bus-info: 0000:02:00.0

let me know if it was helpful and don't forget to assign points!

[Gerardo Arceri]

Been googling around and it looks like SLES10 SP2 has kernel version 2.6.16.60-0.42.10 at most. I don't know if this kernel supports the bnx2x driver, you might consider upgrading to SLES11 as it contains a newer kernel (2.6.27)

[Allen Huang_1]

This is what I get with lspci -v:

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation Unknown device 1650
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 7058
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 7
Memory at fb000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8M]
Memory at fa800000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8M]
Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 3
Capabilities: [50] Vital Product Data
Capabilities: [58] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/3 Enable-
Capabilities: [a0] MSI-X: Enable- Mask- TabSize=17
Capabilities: [ac] Express Endpoint IRQ 0

02:00.1 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation Unknown device 1650
Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Unknown device 7058
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 5
Memory at fa000000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8M]
Memory at f9800000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=8M]
Capabilities: [48] Power Management version 3
Capabilities: [50] Vital Product Data
Capabilities: [58] Message Signalled Interrupts: Mask- 64bit+ Queue=0/3 Enable-
Capabilities: [a0] MSI-X: Enable- Mask- TabSize=17
Capabilities: [ac] Express Endpoint IRQ 0

This looks a bit different from your version. The OS doesn't recognize the device so no eth0 is started.

[Allen Huang_1]

Thanks for looking up, however, we are not planning to upgrade to SLES11 at this point due to a large installed base. How do we get the drivers to work on SLES10?

[Gerardo Arceri]

Is not that the OS doesn't detect the device but that the pciutils package is old and doesn't have access to the latest pci mappings file(/usr/share/hwdata/pci.ids).


I'd try with the Broadcom native drivers, you can get them from:
http://www.broadcom.com/support/ethernet_nic/netxtremeii10.php.
According to the readme file inside the driver package it should support SLES10

[Allen Huang_1]

I'm wondering why the driver wouldn't work on
SLES10 as it is listed as supported on the HP BL460 G6 drivers support site.

[Allen Huang_1]

Loading SLES 11 sp1 worked and it showed the bnx2x driver. Thank you very much for your help!

Shouldn't there be an update on the driver support site or advisory notice regarding this issue?

[rick jones]

Starting at http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/servers/linux/hplinuxcert.html

And clicking around to SLES and the BL460c g6 to get to:

http://h18004.www1.hp.com/products/servers/os/certification.html?var1=BL460c%20G6

does show a footnote saying:

"A Driver Update Diskette for the network interface card is required." It does not include instructions there though.