New network card is detected but not connecting

I’m running OpenSuse Leap 15.5 with kernel 5.14.21 on a MSI B150M Mortar Arctic motherboard with a built in gigabit ethernet port using a Realtek RTL8111H chipset. That setup is running fine.

I bought this TP Link TX201 2.5 gigabit PCIe card, and am having trouble getting it working. It uses a Realtek RTL8125 chipset. I did install this Sauerland r8125 OpenSuse driver package.

The current state is that when I boot, eth1 (the new NIC) is not active. I can bring it up with sudo ip link set dev eth1 up, but it doesn’t get an IP address assigned. The activity light on the NIC does light up, and the Unifi UI shows it as a 2.5 GB link, but not what machine it is.

I thought it could be an issue with my Unifi setup, so I set up an old router with just a laptop and the new NIC in machine hooked up to it, and I do get activity lights on the NIC, and the below output, but it does not show up in the router, and I have no network connectivity.

Here are some diagonstic command outputs that might be helpful. These were all ran over SSH with eth0 hooked up to the working setup, and the new eth1 card hooked up to a test router. Although the output didn’t change as far as I can tell when I ran it locally with nothing hooked up to eth0.

> sudo lspci -nnk | grep -iA3 net
01:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [10ec:8168] (rev 15)
Subsystem: Micro-Star International Co., Ltd. [MSI] Device [1462:7a45]
Kernel driver in use: r8169
Kernel modules: r8169
02:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8125 2.5GbE Controller [10ec:8125] (rev 04)
Subsystem: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8125 2.5GbE Controller [10ec:8125]
Kernel driver in use: r8169
Kernel modules: r8169, r8125
> inxi -N
Network:
Device-1: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8211/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet driver: r8169
Device-2: Realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE driver: r8169
> ip a
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 ::1/128 scope host
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP group default qlen 1000
link/ether 4c:cc:6a:xx:xx:xx brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
altname enp1s0
inet 192.168.1.139/23 brd 192.168.1.255 scope global eth0
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
inet6 fe80::4ecc:6aff:xxxx:xxxx/64 scope link
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
3: eth1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc pfifo_fast state UP group default qlen 1000
link/ether e4:fa:c4:xx:xx:xx brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
altname enp2s0
inet6 fe80::e6fa:c4ff:xxxx:xxxx/64 scope link
valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
> sudo hwinfo --network_ctrl
13: PCI 200.0: 0200 Ethernet controller
[Created at pci.386]
Unique ID: JNkJ.UxqhQSa4DDC
Parent ID: 0Rrv.geJrl+23eFE
SysFS ID: /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:1c.7/0000:02:00.0
SysFS BusID: 0000:02:00.0
Hardware Class: network
Model: "Realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE Controller"
Vendor: pci 0x10ec "Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd."
Device: pci 0x8125 "RTL8125 2.5GbE Controller"
SubVendor: pci 0x10ec "Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd."
SubDevice: pci 0x8125
Revision: 0x04
Driver: "r8169"
Driver Modules: "r8169"
Device File: eth1
I/O Ports: 0xd000-0xdfff (rw)
Memory Range: 0xdf000000-0xdf00ffff (rw,non-prefetchable)
Memory Range: 0xdf010000-0xdf013fff (rw,non-prefetchable)
IRQ: 19 (no events)
HW Address: e4:fa:c4:00:c2:d0
Permanent HW Address: e4:fa:c4:00:c2:d0
Link detected: yes
Module Alias: "pci:v000010ECd00008125sv000010ECsd00008125bc02sc00i00"
Driver Info #0:
Driver Status: r8169 is active
Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe r8169"
Driver Info #1:
Driver Status: r8125 is active
Driver Activation Cmd: "modprobe r8125"
Config Status: cfg=new, avail=yes, need=no, active=unknown
Attached to: #14 (PCI bridge)

(integrated NIC omitted)

I’m not sure what my next steps on debugging this would be, as I’m not sure if this is a driver issue or something else. Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks.

You could try the drivers from here:
https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/Sauerland:/hardware/openSUSE_Leap_15.5/
This are the original Realtek drivers.

They are named r8125 and r8168.
Install them also with the blacklist-r8169 rpm.
r8168 is needed because of blacklisting the kernels r8169 and your r8168 Card would not work anymore.

Ok thank you, I may try that. Just so I know, if I try this and it does not work, and I want to restore my currently working r8168 card, would that be as simple as doing a zypper remove xxxx.rpm?

Yes, all r8168 and r8125 rpms.

Add the Url as Repo, so you get Updates.

And think of secure boot:
https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:NVIDIA_drivers#Secureboot

I got this to work, so to update in case anyone else finds this thread.

I did end up installing OpenSuse Leap 15.6 and kernel 6.4.0 in hopes that might help. I removed what drivers I had installed, and then installed the r8125 and r8168 ones, including the blacklist r8169 ones. I was getting the same symptoms even after that though.

That’s when I realized ip a showed an ipv6 ip address (see my above post), which seemed odd. It turns out I just had to enable DHCP on the new network card, which I did via YaST, by running sudo yast and then going to System > Network Settings, using TAB to navigate to my new card, and using F4 to edit it, and using TAB again to navigate to the Dynamic Address option and enabling that. Then I just exited, saving the settings by selecting Next and OK a few times. It took me a while to figure out using the tab key to navigate, so I wanted to highlight that.

After that, both cards worked on reboot, and would get an ipv4 ip address assigned to them.

Anyway, hopefully that helps anyone else that finds this thread in the future.

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