How to make X710-da2 work with Ubuntu 14.04LTS?

[MUgol]

Hello,

Could anyone help me to establish link either between two ports of an X710-da2 adapter, two Intel X710-da adapters or between an X710-da2 and an X4012 Dell switch?

I am new to 10G ethernet, but I think I already tried everything I could. Here are the steps I performed:

1. Plug two X710-da2 adapters into two Supermicro 2028 systems (DP Xeon E5 v3).

2. Connect the X4012 switch to WAN with 1Gbit RJ45 SFP module

3. Plug DEM-CB300S D-link twinax cables (SFF-8431 compatible) into both switch and X710-da2 adapters (1 cable per NIC)

4. Power on the servers, make sure eth4/eth5 (corresponding to X710 NIC) are up, and observe no link, no led light.

5. Connect the secondary ports of NICs with another dlink twinax cable, setup 192.168.0.{1,2}/24 ipv4 addresses and observe no link as well.

6. Download the latest i40e v1.5.16 driver from official website, install it with "make install", load with rmmod/modprobe and observe no positive changes.

7. Try to enable auto-negotiation with ethtool v3.13 (# ethtool -s eth4 autoneg on) and see no change in ethtool eth4 output (auto-negotiation remains disabled)

8. Try updating nvm with the latest NVMUpdatePackage.zip v5.04 and see "update not available" message for my device 8086-1572, despite ethtool -i showing FW v.4.53

9. Assemble another machine based on Asus z10pa-u8/10g-2s (2x onboard SFP+) without an HDD/SSD and see the link LEDs light up as expected when connecting the machine to Dell X4012 with a DEM-CB300S D-link twinax cable.

Why cannot I see the Intel NIC LEDs light up in any circumstances? Do the NICs need any special motherboard UEFI configuration?

I am running 3.16.0-30-lowlatency kernel on the first Ubuntu Studio 14.04 machine and

3.19.0-43-generic kernel on the second Ubuntu Desktop 14.04 machine.

Attaching lspci -vv, ethtool and ethtool -i outputs.

Update:

Now I see in dmesg that "the driver failed to link because an unqualified module was detected".

It looks weird to me, since Intel claims that "Any SFP passive or active limiting direct attach copper cable that complies with the SFF-8431 v4.1 and SFF-8472 v10.4 specifications is compatible. Intel participates in testing with other members of the Ethernet Alliance to ensure interoperability between cables and host ports that meet these specifications."

Is there anything I can do to work out my issue, other than buy other twinax cables? And I am still wondering why nvmupdate failed on my adapters.

Thanks,

Mikhail.

[idata]

Hi Mikhail,

Thank you for contacting Intel. I'll check on this and will update you of our findings.Sincerely, Sandy

[idata]

Hi Mikhail,

Thank you for contacting Intel. I'll check on this and will update you of our findings.Sincerely, Sandy

[MUgol · Accepted solution]

Looks I found out the answers to my questions. Posting them, since they might be useful for others.

1. X710-da2 + D-link DEM-CB300S/DEM-CB100S/DEM-CB500S/DEM-CB700S link issue

Unfortunately, it is impossible to make X710-da2 work with D-link cables, since X710-da2 automatically (on the FW level) checks the installed SFP module EEPROM for 03h SFF-8472 identifier and refuses to work if that check failed. D-link cables (and many other cables from different OEMs) do not have EEPROM SFF-8472 identifier set to 03h, and one will have to buy Intel or other brand cables, which are officially supported by X710-da2 or at least are confirmed to work with X710-da2.

2. NVM update issue

One may see unexpected "update not available" message when running nvmupdate64e tool. In my case I had FW v.4.53 on my adapter and wanted to update it to 5.04.

The issue can easily be fixed by editing nvmupdate.cfg:

Just find the section, corresponding to your adapter/version, and add your firmware version to the "REPLACES:" list. (you can always get your current NIC FW version with ethtool -i ethX command)

P.S. You may have noticed that there are two firmware files available in nvmupdate package. If your firmware is older then both available versions, you will have to perform your update in two steps - to the older one and only then to the latest one.

It's a pity that there is no allow_unsupported_sfp flag available for i40e driver, and that there is no information on nvmupdate.cfg usage in nvmupdate quick usage guides. Hope one day this post will save someone a couple of hours/days.

[idata]

Hi Mikhail,

Thanks for sharing the solution here. This will be helpful to other users. Sincerely, Sandy