Oracle Unbreakable Linux Version 5.3 64 bit

Question

ANY assistance would be greatly appreciated?
when installing OEL 5.3 x86_64 version, had no issues with the NICs.
The system detected both eth0 and eth1.
During the installation, it provided the screen to configure eth0 and eth1.
When installing OEL 5.2 x86_64, experienced different behavior:
1. After configuring the disk partitions, it did not bring up the screen for network configuration;
It continued to time zone configuration. The remainder of the installation process completed without
Issue. I checked the installation guide. This is normal behavior if the system does not detect NICs.
Post installation, the system did not see eth0 nor eth1. I tried to manually populate
The following network files in order to bring up the NICs:
A, /etc/modprobe.conf
Added: alias eth0 tg3
Alias eth1 tg3
I used driver tg3 since this is the driver used on other linux servers on HP Blade servers.
May be different drivers.
B. /etc/sysconfig/hwconf
Added: class NETWORK
bus: PCI
driver: tg3
detached: 0
device: eth0
Rebooted with no success.
Additional Info: We are doing boot from san
OS LUN Size:: 60 GB - Raid 5
SAN configuration: We use SVC 2145 appliance. Actual storage array is IBM DS8100
Hardware: HP BL490 (blade server)
Will reinstall OEL 5.3 shortly and gather network files in order to see what driver information we need.

Answer 1

just as you concluded, the NIC's are just not found with OEL (and therefore RHEL) 5.2, and they are quite probably added with version 5.3.
first thing is looking into your system using lspci -v you should be able to see the devices.
next: see all NIC's the kernel sees: ifconfig -anext: insert the kernel module: modprobe tg3 next: see if the NIC's are seen by the O/S now: ifconfig -a it's possible the NIC's are not supported by an earlier version of the tg3 driver.