BLUF: Is there any way to bring the interface physically up immediately when the e1000e driver loads so auto-negotiation can start?
Greetings! I am evaluating some Intel NUCs that will be diskless and rely on PXE netbooting. I have everything working, but the boot process is significantly delayed after the OS (in this case, Ubuntu 18.04.3) starts: >From the dmesg output: [ 1.390993] e1000e: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - 3.2.6-k [ 1.932005] e1000e 0000:00:1f.6 eno1: renamed from eth0 [ 9.538232] e1000e: eno1 NIC Link is Up 1000 Mbps Full Duplex, Flow Control: None So there's about 7 seconds where nothing is happening. I've searched this list and found messages about how auto-negotiation can take 3-4 seconds, but there's more going on here. Specifically, once iPXE is done and hands off control to the initrd, link on the NIC goes away and does NOT come back up when the kernel loads the e1000e driver. It isn't until the later in the boot process, when the interface is configured, that link negotiation starts and the LEDs on the NIC come back on. Is there any way to bring the interface physically up immediately when the e1000e driver loads so auto-negotiation can start right away? I'm guessing this simple change would take several seconds off the boot time. (Incidentally, the auto-negotiation during PXE boot happens very quickly.) FWIW, I've also built and installed the latest version of the driver: [ 1.410023] e1000e: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - 3.6.0-NAPI and it didn't behave any differently. Thanks for any insight! _______________________________________________ E1000-devel mailing list E1000-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/e1000-devel To learn more about Intel Ethernet, visit https://forums.intel.com/s/topic/0TO0P00000018NbWAI/intel-ethernet
