BL465c G7 w/ Flex-10 Debian squeeze networking fails

[Jacob Lundberg]

I am attempting to install Debian squeeze on a ProLiant BL465c G7 blade using an HP VC Flex-10 Enet Module network connection. The system PXE boots fine, and Debian loads the be2net driver without any errors or warnings, but the interface is unable to pass any traffic. DHCP times out, and manually assigning an IP appears to succeed, but I am unable to reach any of the other servers on the same subnet.

Any advice is appreciated.

[Alzhy]

Did you define your Blade's "Profile" in Blade Mgmt? Do you use Pass Thru?

[Jacob Lundberg]

> Did you define your Blade's "Profile" in Blade Mgmt?

Yes.

> Do you use Pass Thru?

I am not sure what this means (we are new to the HP blades, trying them out to see if we will start buying them).

However, I assume the network configuration of the Flex-10 must be correct, since the blade was able to PXE boot from a server outside of the chassis environment, correct?

[rick jones]

A pass-though module would be in place of the VC Flex-10 module and does as its name implies - simply "passes the connection though"

These other systems in the subnet, how are they connected to the VC Flex-10 module? Is there a single link from the VC Flex-10 module to an external switch? Or are they each directly connected to the VC Flex-10 module?

[Jacob Lundberg]

> A pass-though module would be in place of the VC Flex-10 module

Oh, those! I thought/hoped it was some obscure configuration option I had missed. We don't have a pass-through module to test with (and it's not the desired configuration anyway).

> Is there a single link from the VC Flex-10 module to an external switch?

Exactly, one 10gigE link to a Brocade FLS648. The connection is working fine for the VMware based installations on the same chassis. It is just the Debian-on-bare-metal installation which is not working. PXE boots fine, then no data after the OS installer loads.

[Jacob Lundberg]

I found an SRPM from HP called hp-be2net-2.102.435.0-1.src.rpm which I extracted and compiled be2net.ko from. Using this version of the be2net driver, the squeeze installer is able to pass at least some traffic on the interface. At this point, I am pretty sure the problem lies with the be2net driver distributed with squeeze.

I am not sure how to properly integrate the HP driver into the Debian installer; I will keep experimenting with that and try to get a complete install. We are also working on getting a Debian carepack from HP in the hopes that we can get HP to deal with this for us.

[Jacob Lundberg]

Unpacked the netboot initrd image, replaced its be2net.ko with HP's version which I compiled, updated the modules.dep with a dependency on inet_lru.ko, repacked the initrd image, and the install works.

After installation, I copied the module to the system with a USB thumb drive, ran depmod -a, recreated the initrd with update-initrd and rebooted, and now I have an installed system with working network access.

Of course, this whole mess is severely sub-optimal, particularly from a long-term maintenance standpoint, since the next kernel update will overwrite the driver.

I am also curious if anybody knows if the changes needed for this hardware to work have been pushed to the mainline Linux kernel yet.

[Eric Hoy]

Jacob....

Just starting to do the same Trying to but Squeezy onto BarMetal BL465 G7... and gettingthe same issues...

Thank you so much for coming back with your findings!

P.S. Had nothing but grief with these G7s on FLEX10 - Esx Hosts, Debian, Oracle on RHEL.

[veerahp]

I'm Installing debian squeeze on BL 460 g7.

Linux debian 2.6.32-5-amd64 #1 SMP Mon Mar 7 21:35:22 UTC 2011 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Could you please provide detail steps on compiling the hp-be2net-2.104.225.7-1.src.rpm in debain, i tried to compiling, but could not succeed.

if you have the complied module please provide me.

[Jacob Lundberg]

The following is the current state of our rough toolkit for installation of the HP updated driver as needed to preseed a Debian system. This is a work-in-progress and comes with no guarantees.

I don't think I am supposed to redistribute the SRPM, but if you can get it from HP, then unpack it (or install it with RPM tools) to extract the driver tarball, which will be named:
hp-be2net-2.102.435.0.tar.gz

The go here and download everything:
http://www.gnifty.net/code/hp-be2net-debian/

What you will be downloading is:

1) A script to rebuild the debian netboot initrd.gz image with the HP driver.

2) A Debianization tarball to build a .deb kernel module source package from which you can build a binary .deb with the driver.

3) A preseed post-installation script snippet that installs the driver during the post-install if it is needed.

Some basic info is in the README files in each directory. You will need all the usual Debian kernel building tools and the kernel headers package (apt-get install linux-headers).

Bear in mind if you install just the driver .ko by hand you must build it into the initrd to make it take effect. Otherwise your system won't have network at the next boot.

[Greg_Swallow]

Hey, thanks for the build instructions and code.  I've been using them all day trying to get Ubuntu Natty, then Maverick builds working.  I tried using drivers version 2.102.435 as well as 2.104.227 in Natty, and 2.102.435 in Maverick.

When I get to the "BUILD MODULE" task, I hit this snag:

BUILD MODULE
make: Entering directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.35-22-server'
  CC [M]  /home/hpinitrd/hp-be2net/module/be_main.o
In file included from /home/hpsucks/hp-be2net/module/be_main.c:19:
/home/hpinitrd/hp-be2net/module/be_cmds.h:974: warning: ‘struct dev_mc_list’ declared inside parameter list
/home/hpinitrd/hp-be2net/module/be_cmds.h:974: warning: its scope is only this definition or declaration, which is probably not what you want
/home/hpinitrd/hp-be2net/module/be_main.c: In function ‘be_set_multicast_list’:
/home/hpinitrd/hp-be2net/module/be_main.c:591: error: ‘struct net_device’ has no member named ‘mc_count’
/home/hpinitrd/hp-be2net/module/be_main.c:597: error: ‘struct net_device’ has no member named ‘mc_list’
/home/hpinitrd/hp-be2net/module/be_main.c:598: error: ‘struct net_device’ has no member named ‘mc_count’
make[1]: *** [/home/hpinitrd/hp-be2net/module/be_main.o] Error 1
make: *** [_module_/home/hpinitrd/hp-be2net/module] Error 2
make: Leaving directory `/usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.35-22-server'

I believe this is because mc_count and mc_list are no longer part of the kernel's net_dev struct, and have been replaced by list_head sometime around 2.6.34 and are thus missing.

http://htl10.users.sourceforge.net/patchsets/LinuxUSB_AR2524-3.0.0.56/0014-convert-mc_list-and-mc_count.patch

Note that this procedure works flawlessly in Lucid.  The drivers don't work, but that could very well be another story.  Is the pass-through module required for this card to work?  Does HP ever plan on releasing drivers that work with Debian/Ubuntu on the support site?