root/floppyfw-3.0/makefiles/realtek-81xxx-driver.README

iFrom: Paul Chan <webreg@cgbc.org>
Subject: Re: Realtek RTL8111DL not detected
Newsgroups: floppyfw.general
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2010 01:10:16 +0800
Organization: Hyssing.net                                                                  

On 2/14/2010 6:59 AM, Thomas Lundquist wrote:
> Thomas Lundquist<baldrick@zelow.no>  writes:
>
>> Thomas Lundquist<baldrick@zelow.no>  writes:
>>
>>> The newest one does mention and have a makefile for 2.4 so at least it
>>> has been working with 2.4 at some point and they may mean to have it
>>> working aswell.
>>
>> And that point was just a few revisions back. r8168-8.013.00
>>
>> Not easy to find and download but I got it. Saved it on my site
>> aswell.
>>
>> Building the whole shebang now, let's see how it all goes.
>
> Not too good. The driver is kinda big and poof the pppoe image went
> too big.
>
> Made a separate modules package out of it so you can try it out.
>
> http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/download/floppyfw-3.0/floppyfw-3.0.12rc1/
>
>
> Thomas.

Thank you for your effort!
I have downloaded 3.0.12rc1 and tested it.  I'm happy to report that
with a little tweaking, it works!

Summary:
Using my default configuration and the r8168 driver loaded, the nic
was partially recognized (no mac address) and no data transfer was
taking place.  After some testing and troubleshooting, was able to
solve the problem by force assigning a MAC address to the nic in
config file.

My setup:
CONNECT_TYPE=STATIC

Here's what I did:
copied realtek8.ffw to the modules folder
added line r8168 to modules.lst

Upon bootup, the driver loads with the following message:
eth0: RTL8168B/8111B at 0xf8817000, 00:00:00:00:00:00, IRQ10

So, we can see that the nic is detected, but not completely, as there
is no MAC address.

Cable connects and disconnects are also detected.  However, the status
message is shown twice with minimal detail.
eg. When I connect a cable to the nic, the following messages are shown:
r8168: eth0: link up
r8168: eth0: link up

Which is slightly different from the status message when I connect my
other nic which shows more detail and is not repeated:
eth0: link up, 10Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x4061
Which is slightly different from the status message when I connect my
other nic which shows more detail and is not repeated:
eth0: link up, 10Mbps, full-duplex, lpa 0x4061

Initial ping test:
when I tried to ping an ip address (8.8.8.8), there was no error
message showing the ping attempts.  All packets simply failed.  When I
used a regular nic, it pinged fine.

Also tried:
- Commenting out all other network drivers so only r8168 is loaded.
No difference.

Solution:
I examined ifconfig, route to no avail.  Finally, decided to try
assigning a MAC address to the nic via config file.
Used the OUTSIDE_MAC setting in config.
Success!  Was finally able to ping, other computers connected to the
firewall were also able to access the internet.  Everything appears to
work!

When I connect/disconnect the cable, it still shows the double message
but that's ok because at least it works!

So, it seems everything is OK.  I will continue testing to determine
speed and stability but the initial results are promising!

Hope that info is helpful and thanks again,

Paul