Fiber card PN9210 will not install on Ubuntu 20.04

[John L Clark]

I have upgraded our server to Ubuntu 20.04 and can not get the Startech Fiber card installed. The chipset is PN9210. Ubuntu sees the card but I can not find the correct drivers. Has anyone had this issue before?

[george1421]

@john-l-clark This is not really a FOG issue but lets see what we can find.

From the ubuntu command prompt key in the following command
lspci -nn | grep -i net

when I do that on my laptop I get this

lspci -nn | grep -i net
00:19.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection I217-LM [8086:153a] (rev 04)
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Wireless 7260 [8086:08b1] (rev 73)

I need to know the two groups of number in the square braces. For example for the ethernet card the numbers are [8086:153a] what are those numbers for your network card?

[george1421]

@george1421 Taking my previous post to the next step when you run the lspci -nn command you get this output.

00:19.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection I217-LM [8086:153a] (rev 04)
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Intel Corporation Wireless 7260 [8086:08b1] (rev 73)

With regards to my ethernet adapter key off that first group of numbers for the ethernet adapter ( 00:19.0 ) that is the hardware location of the network adapter. Identify that hardware location for your PN9210 card then run this command.
lspci -nn -k | more that will spit out a bunch of info but look again for that hardware location ( 00:19.0 ) in my case. I need to know the 3 lines of text before the next group on your system.

In my case for my network adapter this is what I get.

00:19.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation Ethernet Connection I217-L
M [8086:153a] (rev 04)
	Subsystem: Dell Ethernet Connection I217-LM [1028:05be]
	Kernel driver in use: e1000e
	Kernel modules: e1000e

This tells me similar info but also what kernel driver and modules are being used.

[John L Clark]

@george1421

[John L Clark]

This post is deleted!

[John L Clark]

@george1421 I found it in the list.

[george1421]

@john-l-clark ok that hardware comes to this:

1fc9/4024/1fc9/3015	10GBASE-T Pele MV88X3110	"TN9210 10GBase-T Ethernet Adapter"

It doesn’t look like there is a native kernel driver for this network adapter. You are not dead in the water just yet. Let me see if we can find a driver source that you can compile.

[george1421]

@george1421 said in Fiber card PN9210 will not install on Ubuntu 20.04:

TN9210 10GBase-T

Ok it looks like you can get the driver from here: https://www.station-drivers.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=352&func=fileinfo&id=3585&lang=en

In that zip file there is a linux folder.

SO since linux does not contain the driver for this network adapter so the manufacturer offers the driver source code that you can compile on your computer to build the driver using your current system and operating system. You will need the current development tools installed on your ubuntu server and then run the make command to compile and install the kernel driver. Its not hard for me to do because I compile linux kernel stuff all the time. But for someone that doesn’t do it all the time you will do some googling to find out what you need and what to do if it goes wrong. You need to compile it on your server because the driver is specific to the kernel you currently have installed in ubuntu. If you really can’t get it I can see if I can compile it on my ubuntu dev box but that may be not useful for you in the long run.

[John L Clark]

@george1421

Thank you, We will give it a go. Thanks again

[george1421]

@john-l-clark Also appears to be drivers on this github site too: https://github.com/acooks/tn40xx-driver

also kind of instructions here for proxmox (based on ubuntu or debian I can’t remember without looking up).https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/network-adapter-10-gbe-edimax-en9320tx-e.42356/ Look at the second post with the github reference.

[John L Clark]

@george1421 Never could get the Fiber card to work with any of the drivers. We bonded all 4 nics and are getting decent speed. Do know of a Fiber card that does work? I am just about to start researching. Thanks

[george1421]

@john-l-clark Well for 10G cards I always use the intel x520 cards linux has the drivers built in and they just work. https://www.serversupply.com/NETWORKING/NETWORK ADAPTER/10 GIGABIT/INTEL/G80102-001_324760.htm?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrKaOuMat7QIVEr7ACh1VCw1kEAQYAiABEgKFd_D_BwE

One would think you should be able to get the card you have working though.

[george1421]

@john-l-clark Here are the exact key sequences I used to build this driver on a brand now Ubuntu 20.04 image in my virtual lab.

sudo su -
apt update
apt upgrade

apt-get install wget git build-essentials -y

reboot

git clone https://github.com/acooks/tn40xx-driver
cd tn40xx-driver
make
sudo make install

modprobe tn40xx
tail /var/log/syslog
lsmod | grep tn40xx

When you review syslog look for errors regarding this network adapter. Ignore the one about the tainted kernel.

If everything goes ok then you will need to create a startup file in /etc/modules.d so that this network driver loads on every boot up. Once its there then reboot and it should pick up an IP address, if not make sure its listed with the lsmod command like above. For ubuntu you may have to use the network manager to assign an IP address for it. I’m not a big ubuntu user, so I’m just guessing. But it took me longer to install ubuntu than it did for me to build this network kernel driver. Keep the installer files because when you upgrade your linux kernel you will need to recompile this network adapter driver.