wikiInstalling Intel Network Card Drivers under Debian
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This article will describe the installation of the Intel(R) PRO/1000 Linux drivers under Debian Lenny.
Since new network cards are not supported by the Debian standard kernel as a rule, loading the current drivers from the Intel web site will be necessary. The drivers must first be compiled for the kernel in use. To avoid the process of compiling, we provide Debian packages with the drivers for 32- and 64-bit systems.
Supported Hardware
Network cards supported by the e1000e module:
- Intel® 82583 PCI-E, 82571/2/3/4/7/8 or 82566/7-based PCI-E gigabit network
Adjusting the sources.list file
Add TK-Mirror to the sources.list file (if not already present)
echo "deb http://debian.tk-dns.de/ squeeze tks" >> /etc/apt/sources.list apt-get update
Creating a Backup
The original e1000e.ko kernel module will be overwritten. For that reason, creating a copy of the old module would be advisable.
cp /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/e1000e/e1000e.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/net/e1000e/e1000e.ko.orig
Installation with TK Kernel 2.6.32-5
apt-get install e1000e-2.6.32-5 depmod -a
Loading the Drivers
Check the version of the driver.
modinfo e1000e | grep version
Output:
version: 1.4.4-NAPI srcversion: F3AE734BF9B60BE9BE2460E vermagic: 2.6.32.5-686 SMP mod_unload modversions 686
Load the driver module:
modprobe e1000e
Installing without a Network
If a network card is not available, the drivers can be installed with the help of a USB stick. To do so, simply load the drivers from the following address and copy them to the stick.
Mount the USB stick from the server:
mkdir /mnt/usb mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb
- Alternatively:
- If the server cannot be accessed physically, the data can also be integrated using the IPMI module.
- A "virtual storage device", where the data is located, can be mounted with the help of "console redirection".
Install the driver package:
The drivers in the package have been compiled for the Debian kernel version 2.6.32-5-amd64 (2.6.32-35squeeze2).
If you have installed from a current Debian CD, this kernel will have been installed.
Check which Debian kernel has been installed:
root@testing:~# dpkg -l | grep linux-image ii linux-image-2.6-amd64 2.6.32+29 Linux 2.6 for 64-bit PCs (meta-package) ii linux-image-2.6.32-5-amd64 2.6.32-35squeeze2 Linux 2.6.32 for 64-bit PCs
cd /mnt/usb dpkg -i e1000e-2.6.32-5_1.4.4_amd64.deb dpkg -i igb-2.6.32-5_3.1.16_amd64.deb dpkg -i ixgbe-2.6.32-5_3.4.24_amd64.deb
Check the version:
modinfo e1000e
Load the driver:
modprobe e1000e
