Arch Linux

Japhir

Member

Registered: 2015-03-25

Posts: 10

[Solved] Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 connection issues

Hi there, I'm a new member of these forums.

I've recently installed Arch as a dualboot on my Windows 8.1 desktop computer. The ethernet runs fine when booting from the live-install medium (even when arch-chrooting into the system) but doesn't after booting into the system itself.

I've looked at the relevant section of the Arch-wiki, similar problems like this one and this one but am not able to figure it out.

When running from Live media

#ip link
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default 
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: enp2s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP mode DEFAULT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:24:8c:43:e7:6c brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

#lspci -v
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller 
(rev 02)
	Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. M3A78-EH Motherboard
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 44
	I/O ports at d800 [size=256]
	Memory at feaff000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
	Memory at f8ef0000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=64K]
	Expansion ROM at feac0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
	Capabilities: [40] Power Management version 3
	Capabilities: [50] MSI: Enable+ Count=1/1 Maskable- 64bit+
	Capabilities: [70] Express Endpoint, MSI 01
	Capabilities: [b0] MSI-X: Enable- Count=2 Masked-
	Capabilities: [d0] Vital Product Data
	Capabilities: [100] Advanced Error Reporting
	Capabilities: [140] Virtual Channel
	Capabilities: [160] Device Serial Number 03-00-00-00-68-4c-e0-00
	Kernel driver in use: r8169

dhcpcd gave me something like already running, while dmesg | grep 8169 showed that the interface was up.

Running without install media

#ip link
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN mode DEFAULT group default 
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
2: enp2s0: <NO-CARRIER,BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc fq_codel state DORMANT 
mode DORMANT group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:24:8c:43:e7:6c brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

#lspci -v
02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express 
Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 02)
        Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. M3A78-EH Motherboard
        Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 28
        I/O ports at d800 [size=256]
        Memory at feaff000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=4K]
        Memory at f8ef0000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=64K]
        Expansion ROM at feac0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: r8168
        Kernel modules: r8169, r8168

#dhcpcd enp2s0
dhcpcd[1815]: control_open: Connection refused
dhcpcd[1815]: version 6.7.1 starting
dhcpcd[1815]: enp2s0: waiting for carrier
dhcpcd[1815]: timed out
dhcpcd[1815]: exited

#dmesg | grep 8168
[    0.195647] pci 0000:02:00.0: [10ec:8168] type 00 class 0x020000
[    3.109396] r8168 Gigabit Ethernet driver 8.039.00-NAPI loaded
[    3.109413] r8168 0000:02:00.0: can't disable ASPM; OS doesn't have ASPM control
[    3.110973] r8168: This product is covered by one or more of the following patents: 
US6,570,884, US6,115,776, and US6,327,625.
[    3.110977] r8168  Copyright (C) 2014  Realtek NIC software team <nicfae@realtek.com> 
[    3.166960] r8168 0000:02:00.0 enp2s0: renamed from eth0
[    6.403816] r8168: enp2s0: link up

As you can see I've tried replacing the driver (r8169) with the other one from the official repositories (r8168) but also with the one from the Realtek site. Dmesg seems to think the link is up, but ip link doesn't. Pinging obviously doesn't work without the live media.

Any ideas on how to fix this?

Kind regards,

Japhir

Last edited by Japhir (2015-04-07 07:28:51)

ratcheer

Member

Registered: 2011-10-09

Posts: 912

Re: [Solved] Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 connection issues

Kernel driver r8169 used to have a lot of problems through about kernel 3.2.6, but it has worked quite well since then. I recommend going back to it and then we can troubleshoot from there.

My PC uses an r8168 chipset with r8169, but I configure my connection manually, so I probably won't be able to help much with dhcpcd, but I will try.

Tim

Japhir

Member

Registered: 2015-03-25

Posts: 10

Re: [Solved] Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 connection issues

Hi, thanks for your response. I've removed the alternative driver (and the regular one from the blacklist and modprobed it). This is what I get after rebooting:

https://www.dropbox.com/sc/xmnsmipwjcts … 5-NAyal-ea

What way do you use to set up your network? I have a static ip address.

Last edited by Japhir (2015-03-30 22:01:33)

ratcheer

Member

Registered: 2011-10-09

Posts: 912

Re: [Solved] Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 connection issues

I used this: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ne … ng_systemd

Tim

Japhir

Member

Registered: 2015-03-25

Posts: 10

Re: [Solved] Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 connection issues

Some other problems came up, because apparently my LiveMedium was a little outdated (couldn't verify the pacman key). I created a new one from my laptop and was able to do a clean install. This means that there are no longer any remnants of the 8168 driver.

The static wired network connection still does not work. Can you help me with the manual setup of the network?

This is the required information I believe
Static IP address: 77.173.34.137
Subnet mask in CIDR notation: 255.255.128.0 (same as /17 if I understand correctly)
Broadcast address: 77.173.127.255 (calculated with the help of http://www.remotemonitoringsystems.ca/broadcast.php)
Gateway's IP address: 77.173.127.254
Name server (DNS) IP addresses: 195.241.77.55
(secondary DNS: 195.241.77.58)

Here's what I tried
I've followed the link you posted, I created a /etc/conf.d/net-conf-enp2s0 file with the address, netmask, broadcast and gateway listed with the above values.
Then created the /usr/local/bin/net-up.sh and /usr/local/bin/net-down.sh files exactly the same as in the guide and made them executable.
Then created /etc/systemd/system/network@.service also the same. I didn't know if i had to name the file like this or network@enp2s0.service.

I then loaded the scripts with systemctl:

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl enable network@enp2s0.service 
Created symlink from /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/network@enp2s0.service to /etc/systemd/system/network@.service
systemctl start network@enp2s0.service
Job for network@enp2s0.service failed. See "systemctl status network@enp2s0.service" and "journalctl -xe" for details.

Looking at what might have caused this:

systemctl status network@enp2s0.service
network@enp2s0.service - Network connectivity (enp2s0)
Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/network@.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: failed (result: exit-code) since Sat 2015-04-04 13:19:18 CEST; 12s ago
Process: 640 ExecStart-/usr/local/bin/net-up.sh %i (code=exited, status=2)
Main PID: 640 (code=exited, status=2)
....

It has more output but I'm typing all of this because getting files from that computer on the internet takes more effort than typing it over . If you need the enitire output I can provide it.

Obviously it still doesn't work:

#ping -c 3 www.google.com
PING www.google.com (64.233.167.104) 56(84) bytes of data.
From 77.173.34.137.ip.telfort.nl (77.173.34.137) icmp_seq=1 Destination Host Unreachable
(two more times)
--- www.google.com ping statistics ---
3 packets transmitted, 0 received, +3 errors, 100% packet loss, time 2006ms
pipe 3

I hope you can help!

Kind regards,

Ilja

Last edited by Japhir (2015-04-04 12:20:14)

ratcheer

Member

Registered: 2011-10-09

Posts: 912

Re: [Solved] Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 connection issues

My netmask is set to 24, I'm not sure how that compares to what you determined. I can only assume that your other address specifications are correct, but if any of them aren't, it won't work, of course. I recall having a difficult time following those instructions and understanding all the values that had to be entered the first couple of times I went through them. Once you get everything just right, those instructions do work. I don't have any special knowledge; all I did was follow the instructions.

Can you get the connection operational using the manual commands, setting up the link one command at a time, as referenced earlier in the same wiki article (section Manual assignment, under Static IP address)? You need to make sure it can work at all before you try automating it.

Good luck,
Tim

Japhir

Member

Registered: 2015-03-25

Posts: 10

Re: [Solved] Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 connection issues

Thanks again!

Somehow I got it to work! I actually have no idea how, so I'll have to retrace my steps. I tried to edit the dhcpcd config file (/etc/dhcpcd.conf) to this:

# define static profile
profile static_enp2s0
static ip_adress=77.173.34.137/17
static routers=77.173.127.254
static domain_name_servers=77.173.127.254

#fallback to static profile on enp2s0
interface enp2s0
fallback static_enp2s0

and added the dhcp static route hook script mentioned here.

#/usr/lib/dhcpcd/dhcpcd-hooks/40-vpnroute
ip route add 77.173.34.137/17 via 77.173.127.254

When I boot it doesn't work, but if i run dhcpcd as root it does. It shows some weird things though and assigns me a different IP than the one specified. I think it works because of the hook, not because of the config file.

EDIT: I removed the config file and it still worked. Then I autostarted the module by typing:

sudo systemctl enable dhcpcd

Yaaay

Last edited by Japhir (2015-04-07 07:28:35)