Problem with automatic installation of NIC card

[DCCoolBreeze]

Because I have a 3COM 3c509 card, I have had to remove plug and play and set it up manually to make it work. Now my card works but I have to do a >insmod 3c509 each time I reboot. How can I automate this????

 

[ifincham]

Hi,

You just put a line in your /etc/modules.conf :

alias eth0 3c509

(assuming its eth0 !)

Hope this helps

 

[DCCoolBreeze]

thanks.. unforunately I had done that but it did not work.
I have something like

alias eth0 3c509
options eth0 io=0x300

 

[DCCoolBreeze]

yes. this is what is in modules.conf:

alias parport_lowlevel parport_pc
alias eth0 3c509
options 3c509 io=0x300

is modules.conf not running or is their a syntax error in the config file? How would I tell

 

[ifincham]

Hi,

The only things it could be are

(i) dependencies are wrong so modprobe doesn't work - so do as root :

# /sbin/depmod -ae

(ii) you have a kernel (custom ?) that doesn't have kmod support.

(iii) its an older linux and uses /etc/conf.modules instead of modules.conf


Regards

 

[DCCoolBreeze]

I am using RH 7.2 so it must be (1) so I will try that now.

Thanks

 

[DCCoolBreeze]

I ran depmod -ae and it returned nothing...since I use redhat 7.2 and installed it using the defaults...what's up??? What else can I test???

 

[ifincham]

Hi,

This is kind of odd. Does it work if you manually do :

# /sbin/modprobe 3c509

instead of

# /sbin/insmod 3c509

Regards

 

[DCCoolBreeze]

yes. In fact this is how I get it started. I simply run

>insmod 3c509<CR>

and it sets up the NIC including the parameters...

 

[ifincham]

Hi,

In this case I don't think it actually makes a difference, but there is a difference between insmod and modprobe. When you insmod you explicitly insert a named module into memory, just giving the module name. Modprobe, on the other hand, consults the dependencies database - e.g.

/lib/modules/2.4.18/modules.dep

(kernel version changes to match yours as per 'uname -r')

It then insmods 'x' number of modules as needed by the one requested, i.e. including all dependencies.

It can be that they are indentical commands because there are no dependencies in loading the module anyway and I think thats the case here so maybe thats of somewhat academic interest other than the fact that the kernel uses modprobe instead of insmod .

Regardless, if you can '/sbin/modprobe 3c509' then its not that anyway.

The suspiscion then comes to something being wrong with your /etc/modules.conf .
Do you have any other modules referenced in there that load correctly ?

Regards