Intel e1000e Linux Driver

Linux* e1000e Base Driver overview and installation

Using the e1000e Base Driver for Gigabit Intel® Network Connections

The e1000e driver supports PCI Express* Gigabit Network Connections except the 82575, 82576, 82580, and I350.

Overview

The Linux base drivers support the 2.4.x and 2.6.x kernels. These drivers includes support for Itanium® 2-based systems.

These drivers are only supported as a loadable module. Intel is not supplying patches against the kernel source to allow for static linking of the drivers. For questions related to hardware requirements, refer to the documentation supplied with your Intel Gigabit adapter. All hardware requirements listed apply to use with Linux.

The following features are now available in supported kernels:

Native VLANs
Channel Bonding (teaming)
SNMP

Channel Bonding documentation can be found in the Linux kernel source: /documentation/networking/bonding.txt

The driver information previously displayed in the /proc file system is not supported in this release. Alternatively, you can use ethtool (version 1.6 or later), lspci, and ifconfig to obtain the same information. Instructions on updating ethtool can be found in the section Additional configurations later in this document.

NoteThe Intel® 82562v 10/100 Network Connection only provides 10/100 support.

Building and installation

To build a binary RPM* package of this driver, run “rpmbuild -tb e1000e.tar.gz”.

NotesFor the build to work properly, the currently running kernel MUST match the version and configuration of the installed kernel sources. If you have just recompiled the kernel reboot the system now.RPM functionality has only been tested in Red Hat distributions.

Move the base driver tar file to the directory of your choice. For example, use “/home/username/e1000e” or “/usr/local/src/e1000e”.
Untar/unzip the archive, where <x.x.x> is the version number for the driver tar file:tar zxf e1000e-<x.x.x>.tar.gz
Change to the driver src directory, where <x.x.x> is the version number for the driver tar:cd e1000e-<x.x.x>/src/
Compile the driver module:# make installThe binary will be installed as:/lib/modules/<KERNEL VERSION>/kernel/drivers/net/e1000e/e1000e.[k]oThe install location listed above is the default location. This may differ for various Linux distributions.
Load the module using either the insmod or modprobe command:modprobe e1000e insmod e1000eNote that for 2.6 kernels the insmod command can be used if the full path to the driver module is specified. For example:insmod /lib/modules/<KERNEL VERSION>/kernel/drivers/net/e1000e/e1000e.koWith 2.6 based kernels also make sure that older e1000e drivers are removed from the kernel, before loading the new module:rmmod e1000e; modprobe e1000e
Assign an IP address to the interface by entering the following, where <x> is the interface number:ifconfig eth<x> <IP_address>
Verify that the interface works. Enter the following, where <IP_address> is the IP address for another machine on the same subnet as the interface that is being tested:ping <IP_address>

NoteSome systems have trouble supporting MSI and/or MSI-X interrupts. If you believe your system needs to disable this style of interrupt, the driver can be built and installed with the command:# make CFLAGS_EXTRA=-DDISABLE_PCI_MSI installNormally the driver will generate an interrupt every two seconds, so if you can see that you’re no longer getting interrupts in cat /proc/interrupts for the ethX e1000e device, then this workaround may be necessary.

#system-config-network