3COM 3C905-TX NIC not working on Sol8 x86!

Question

Hello all,
I am running an old HP Vectra VL8i 400 Mhz, 128MB ram, 8GB Maxtor IDE HDD,
3COM 3C905-TX NIC on Solaris 8 x86 (Intel Edition). I have been having HUGE
problems getting it to recognize any network interface. At first I had a
linksys LNE-TX100 NIC in it and after trying for days to get it to recognize
the NIC I gave up after finding that several other people had problems with
this NIC also. Thus, off a recommendation on sun's forums, I bought a 3COM
3C905-TX NIC. I installed the NIC today and verified its listed in the
'/boot/solaris/devicedb/master' file. It shows up as 'elxl' (those are L's,
not 1's I believe). I verified this in '/etc/driver_aliases'. Based upon
this and Sun's x86 HCL list which also lists my NIC I should have ZERO
problems.
I added my IP, hostname, and FQDN (dummy FQDN to stop sendmail's errors for
now until I put this box on a real network) to the /etc/hosts file. I then
added '/etc/hostname.elxl0' with my hostname. Next, I edited the
'/etc/netmasks' to include my network number and netmask.
Now, however, whenever I do an 'ifconfig -a', it only shows me 'lo0' the
local loopback and interestingly enough, the inet address for this interface
is 0.0.0.0. I can't ping this or do anything with it. This isn't the
problem though, the real problem is that I can't get it to bring the 'elxl0'
interface up. If I do a 'ifconfig elxl0 plumb' it gives me the error:
'ifconfig: plumb: elxl0: Bad file number'.
Also, on bootup the machine gives the following errors:
--- ifconfig: plumb: elxl0: Bad file number
--- Moving addresses from failed IPv4 interfaces: elxl0
--- Couldn't move, no alternative interface
--- in.rdisc: No interface up
I would REALLY appreciate ANY help on this matter as its incredibly
frustrating. Any advice is welcome...thanks!!
XiveX

Answer 1

Hi,
Thanks for your reply. Some cards are not supported by solaris 8.
Try this method.
Solaris 8 does not recognize these newer cards even though the chipsets are
well
known and have well tested, mature drivers in Solaris. This is just because the
vendor and device ID's are not in your /etc/driver_aliases file.
Step 1. Insert the 3COM NIC card in to the system.
Step 2: prtconf -v | grep pci
Example:
prtconf -v shows:
pci8086,7112
pci8086,7113
pci8086,5345
pci10b7,1000 <- 3com
Step 3. In file /etc/driver_aliases, look for the driver that matched the
chipset
on the card. One of them is elxl for the 3com chipset.
Example:
/etc/driver_aliases:
elx "pci10b7,5900"
elx "pci10b7,5950"
elxl "pci10b7,9000"
elxl "pci10b7,9001"
elxl "pci10b7,9050"
elxl "pci10b7,9055"
elxl "pci10b7,9056"
elxl "pci10b7,9004"
elxl "pci10b7,9005"
elxl "pci10b7,9006"
add elxl "pci10b7,1000"
Step 4. Add the vendor/ID that the Plug-and-Play BIOS startup message displayed
for this card like this: elxl "pci10b7,1000" This will support
the NIC
in Solaris.
Step 5. Add the following lines to support the card in Device Configuration
Assistant:
Example:
pci10b7,1000 pci10b7,1000 net pci elxl.bef "3COM 3C980B TX"
Add the entries in /boot/solaris/devicedb/master file, under PCI
devices
section
Step 6. Run "devlinks".
Step 7. Reboot the system with b -r option.
let me know the status.
Regards,
Senthilkumar
Developer Technical Support
http://www.sun.com/developers/support