Issues with HPE 562SFP+ in Debian

[jochr78]

Hi,
We are seeing some strange issues with this card.
We are running Debian 8.7.

I know that this is an HPE branded card, but as far as I know this card should use the i40e driver under Linux.
I compiled the latest driver 2.0.19 found at sourceforge from Intel.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/e1000/files/i40e%20stable/

So the issues we are seeing..
First of all when the driver is loaded correctly and the interfaces turn up we do not get any traffic between the Debian server and the switch.
We don't even see the mac address on the switch in the remote end.

Secondly..
Sometimes when we boot the server the interface does not show at all, and some times only of them.I have noticed this error in kernel messages when this happen:

1.856937] i40e 0000:08:00.1: Initial pf_reset failed: -15

[    1.856939] i40e 0000:08:00.1: previous errors forcing module to load in debug mode

So what could be wrong? Are we using the wrong driver..
One of the problems here is that HPE does not provide any official drivers for Debian/Ubuntu....

Thanks

/Jo Christian

[Jimmy Vance]

Generally the Linux inbox NIC drivers work without issue. Occasionally HPE will release a driver because our schedule doesn't  match up to the OS vendor or we release a new NIC that the inbox driver doesn't recognise the PCI ID of until the next kernel update.  You should be able to get the source from the NIC vendor if you want to compile your own version.

In this case maybe the NIC is having issue with the SFP+ transceiver being used?

[jochr78]

Hi,

It actually was an problem with the sfp+ transceiver...
But we are still having major issues with this card. 

We still get the "Initial pf_reset failed" when we reboot the server randomly.
When driver is loaded correclty the interfaces does come up, and they seem to work.
But when the driver fails with Initial pf_reset failed nothing works at all.

We usually have to reboot the server up to 4-5 times before the driver is loaded correctly.. What can be wrong here?

/Jo Christian

[Jimmy Vance]

When you installed a newer driver did you rebuild the initrd image? You could possibly still be loading an older version of the  driver