Knoppix 6.2 Boot from PXE

[kl522]

Hello,

But if i have an Intel card and if e1000.ko is the driver, this gets initalized properly. The issue is only with bnx2.ko and the firmware files.

Unfortunately all of my systems have Onboard Broadcom NICs.

I have asked you to read the document, you have probably not read it thoroughly yet.
Nevermind, that's the long version of the answer. The short version of the answer is as follows :-

You need to have a shell script called /sbin/hotplug, with execution permission, the content
is something like this :-
#!/bin/sh
echo 1 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading
cat /lib/firmware/bnx2/$FIRMWARE > /sys/$DEVPATH/data
echo 0 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading

That's will likely do the trick.
Cheers.

[krishnaprasadk]

I have asked you to read the document, you have probably not read it thoroughly yet.
Nevermind, that's the long version of the answer. The short version of the answer is as follows :-

You need to have a shell script called /sbin/hotplug, with execution permission, the content
is something like this :-
#!/bin/sh
echo 1 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading
cat /lib/firmware/bnx2/$FIRMWARE > /sys/$DEVPATH/data
echo 0 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading

That's will likely do the trick.


Cheers.

my bad !!.. i read the doc but it didn't clicked for me. I will try this out today. I've just one basic question..what's the DEVPATH needs to be used in my case? will it be the hard drive device name? please advise

Thanks,
Krishnaprasad

[krishnaprasadk]

I have asked you to read the document, you have probably not read it thoroughly yet.
Nevermind, that's the long version of the answer. The short version of the answer is as follows :-

You need to have a shell script called /sbin/hotplug, with execution permission, the content
is something like this :-
#!/bin/sh
echo 1 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading
cat /lib/firmware/bnx2/$FIRMWARE > /sys/$DEVPATH/data
echo 0 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading

That's will likely do the trick.
Cheers.

Hi, Please ignore my previous post.

i do see that DEVPATH is the Path under /sys at which this device's sysfs directory can be found. i saw the documentation inside Documentation/firmware_class as well. From there i understood the way kernel is calling the firmware and how it needs to be passed from the user end. per your advise, I've created a script /sbin/hotplug as below:-

#!/bin/sh
echo 1 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading
cat /lib/firmware/bnx2/$FIRMWARE > /sys/class/firmware/data
echo 0 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading


Now the firmware is read while loading the module and it fails with an error message as below

firmware 0000:05:00.0: firmware_loading_store: vmap() failed
bnx2: Can't load firmware file "bnx2/bnx2-mips-06-4.6.16.fw"
bnx2: probe of 0000:05:00.0 failed with error -2

I am checking bnx2 driver code on why this failure is seen.

Thanks,
Krishnaprasad

[krishnaprasadk]

Hi, Please ignore my previous post.

i do see that DEVPATH is the Path under /sys at which this device's sysfs directory can be found. i saw the documentation inside Documentation/firmware_class as well. From there i understood the way kernel is calling the firmware and how it needs to be passed from the user end. per your advise, I've created a script /sbin/hotplug as below:-

#!/bin/sh
echo 1 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading
cat /lib/firmware/bnx2/$FIRMWARE > /sys/class/firmware/data
echo 0 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading


Now the firmware is read while loading the module and it fails with an error message as below

firmware 0000:05:00.0: firmware_loading_store: vmap() failed
bnx2: Can't load firmware file "bnx2/bnx2-mips-06-4.6.16.fw"
bnx2: probe of 0000:05:00.0 failed with error -2

I am checking bnx2 driver code on why this failure is seen.

Thanks,
Krishnaprasad

It looks like the issue that i am seeing ( i.e. while loading the bnx2 firmware, vmap() call is failed ) is a known issue. i do see the link as below and it exactly matches the error code that i am seeing.

patchwork.kernel.org/patch/49056/

vmap is called to load the firmware data stored in /lib/firmware/bnx2/$FIRMWARE to the kernel.

Looks like Knoppix is not yet included the fix mentioned in the above link in the kernel that they use. So i compiled ( Changed firmware_class.c in drivers/base ) and created a new bzImage using Live CD but still i face the same error. The error is as below

firmware 0000:05:00.0: firmware_loading_store: vmap() failed
bnx2: Can't load firmware file "bnx2/bnx2-mips-06-4.6.16.fw"
bnx2: probe of 0000:05:00.0 failed with error -2


Any one have faced an error like this? i am blocked my Knoppix Booting via PXE because of this issue .. any help will be highly appreciated !

Thank you all for your time !
- Krishnaprasad

[kl522]

Now the firmware is read while loading the module and it fails with an error message as below

firmware 0000:05:00.0: firmware_loading_store: vmap() failed
bnx2: Can't load firmware file "bnx2/bnx2-mips-06-4.6.16.fw"
bnx2: probe of 0000:05:00.0 failed with error -2

I am checking bnx2 driver code on why this failure is seen.

Thanks,
Krishnaprasad

Try this improved script ( still not the best ) :-

#!/bin/sh
[ -z "$FIRMWARE" ] && exit 
echo 1 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading
cat /lib/firmware/$FIRMWARE > /sys/class/firmware/data
echo 0 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading

Please, this is not ***NOT*** a kernel bug or something, this is
an ***EXPECTED*** behaviour.

Cheers.

[krishnaprasadk]

Try this improved script ( still not the best ) :-

#!/bin/sh
[ -z "$FIRMWARE" ] && exit 
echo 1 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading
cat /lib/firmware/$FIRMWARE > /sys/class/firmware/data
echo 0 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading

Please, this is not ***NOT*** a kernel bug or something, this is
an ***EXPECTED*** behaviour.

Cheers.

Hello,
Sorry if i took a wrong route. I tried the above change that you advised in /sbin/hotplug script, but still bnx2 fails to load the firmware file. I am still seeing the error message:-

firmware_loading_store: vmap() failed

As far as scripting is concerned, no difficulties are there.

since i saw a kernel forum thread which shows the exact error message, i thought of following that. Also in the 6.2 DVD, kernel source is available. There also inside drivers/base, firmware_class.c doesnt have the mutex fix that the forum is suggested to use. so I believed that i am facing the same issue.

Now that the loading of bnx2 firmware still fails with this updated script, could you please advise on how to move forward?

I really appreciate the help that you are providing in this issue !

- Krishnaprasad

[krishnaprasadk]

Try this improved script ( still not the best ) :-

#!/bin/sh
[ -z "$FIRMWARE" ] && exit 
echo 1 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading
cat /lib/firmware/$FIRMWARE > /sys/class/firmware/data
echo 0 > /sys/$DEVPATH/loading

Please, this is not ***NOT*** a kernel bug or something, this is
an ***EXPECTED*** behaviour.

Cheers.

okay..my mistake.. instead of sending the bnx2 firmware data ( /path/$FIRMWARE ) to /sys/$DEVPATH/data, i was re-directing it to /sys/class/firmware/data.

Now i corrected that and bootup of Knoppix 6.2 from PXE is successful using NFS share... there is not even requited to check if $FIRMWARE exists or not.

Thanks for all your patience in helping me out on this.

Thank you !
Krishnaprasad

[krishnaprasadk]

Hi, Looks like this is a known issue.
https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/49056/

Does any one if this patch is part of any of the upcoming Knoppix releases?

Thanks,
Krishnaprasad