Enable Intel I225/I226 driver (igc)

[mrIncompetent]

Enable Intel I225/I226 driver (igc)

This adds the Intel IGC driver for 2.5G NICs (I225/I226).

Right now, booting Flatcar fails during initramfs as the ignition config cannot be loaded. Root cause is the missing driver for the NIC.

Fedora CoreOS works and comes with those drivers as well:

core@localhost:~$ cat /etc/os-release | grep PRETTY_NAME
PRETTY_NAME="Fedora CoreOS 39.20240225.3.0"
core@localhost:~$ lsmod | grep igc
igc                   192512  0

Intel documentation: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/articles/000055236/ethernet-products/gigabit-ethernet-controllers-up-to-2-5gbe.html

Would much appreciate, so this stack of NUC-like devices becomes useful:

[pothos]

Thank you, looks good!
I've started an image build and if you want, you can download the image artifact amd64-generic-image.zip and test if everything works.
We'll also have to check the vmlinuz size increase to make sure that the boot partition is less than half filled (once the image is built, I can download it and do the check).

[github-actions]

Build action triggered: https://github.com/flatcar/scripts/actions/runs/8420861859

[ader1990]

I was thinking that this driver might be also useful for ARM64. But from the docs, this driver seems to be used mostly on the NUCs and not the ARM64 servers (ARM64 boards do not use Intel as well).

[mrIncompetent]

I've started an image build and if you want, you can download the image artifact amd64-generic-image.zip and test if everything works.

Found the correct images in amd64-vm-images.zip & verified it works:

Flatcar Container Linux by Kinvolk developer 3916.0.0+nightly-20240321-2100-2-gc64bd7462c
Update Strategy: No Reboots
core@localhost ~ $ lsmod | grep igc
igc                   188416  0
core@localhost ~ $ networkctl 
IDX LINK   TYPE     OPERATIONAL SETUP     
  1 lo     loopback carrier     configured
  2 enp3s0 ether    routable    configured

2 links listed.
core@localhost ~ $ networkctl status enp3s0
● 2: enp3s0
                   Link File: /usr/lib/systemd/network/99-default.link
                Network File: /usr/lib/systemd/network/yy-pxe.network
                       State: routable (configured)
                Online state: online                                             
                        Type: ether
                        Path: pci-0000:03:00.0
                      Driver: igc
                      Vendor: Intel Corporation
                       Model: Ethernet Controller I226-V
            Hardware Address: e0:51:d8:12:bf:59 (China Dragon Technology Limited)
                         MTU: 1500 (min: 68, max: 9216)
                       QDisc: mq
IPv6 Address Generation Mode: eui64
    Number of Queues (Tx/Rx): 4/4
            Auto negotiation: yes
                       Speed: 2Gbps
                      Duplex: full
                        Port: tp
                     Address: 192.168.2.31 (DHCP4 via 192.168.2.1)
                              fd0d:c0e4:bc17:fce1:e251:d8ff:fe12:bf59
                              fe80::e251:d8ff:fe12:bf59
                     Gateway: 192.168.2.1
                         DNS: 192.168.2.1
           Activation Policy: up
         Required For Online: yes
             DHCP4 Client ID: e0:51:d8:12:bf:59
           DHCP6 Client DUID: DUID-EN/Vendor:0000ab113e86281fd8ebac8e
                Connected To: MikroTik on port bridge/ether6

[ader1990]

The module size should be around 100k. Would be helpful to know the size of it and the size of the boot partition used space.

modinfo igc | grep -i filename | awk '{print $2}' | xargs ls -liat
du -s /boot

[mrIncompetent]

Flatcar Container Linux by Kinvolk developer 3916.0.0+nightly-20240321-2100-2-gc64bd7462c
Update Strategy: No Reboots
core@localhost ~ $ modinfo igc | grep -i filename | awk '{print $2}' | xargs ls -liat
du -s /boot
5073 -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 78716 Mar 25 07:50 /lib/modules/6.6.21-flatcar/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/intel/igc/igc.ko.xz
0	/boot

[mrIncompetent]

No boot partition as it's live booted via pxe.
I'll try to install

[mrIncompetent]

Did an install via:

sudo flatcar-install -d /dev/nvme0n1 -f ./flatcar_production_image.bin -i ./ignition.json

./flatcar_production_image.bin being the image taken from amd64-generic-image.zip/flatcar_production_image.bin.bz2

ignition.json being:

{"ignition":{"config":{"replace":{"verification":{}}},"proxy":{},"security":{"tls":{}},"timeouts":{},"version":"3.4.0"},"kernelArguments":{},"passwd":{"users":[{"name":"core","sshAuthorizedKeys":["ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAAICjTyrFjJwY/e/6rV2RUx6hlxNw3kmctVw0otkjw0771 henrik@framework13"]}]},"storage":{},"systemd":{}}

Flatcar Container Linux by Kinvolk developer 3916.0.0+nightly-20240321-2100-2-gc64bd7462c
core@localhost ~ $ modinfo igc | grep -i filename | awk '{print $2}' | xargs ls -liat
du -s /boot
17758 -rw-r--r--. 1 root root 78716 Mar 25 07:50 /lib/modules/6.6.21-flatcar/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/intel/igc/igc.ko.xz
62596	/boot

[ader1990]

62596

This looks in line with the ~70k compressed kernel module versus the latest version size. #1731 (comment)