Issue configuring Intel ethernet controller I225-LM I225-V via cli

[ICPenthusiast]

Ciao tutti!

TL;DR - I am having trouble with recognizing and setting a wired connection with Intel ethernet controller I225-LM via CLI

For a weird project, I need to boot a physical server from a live USB.
It doesn't need to be or act as a server, just to boot up, allow me to do some stuff, and then reboot from the actual server drive.
Because it's a headless server, it must be operated via a serial terminal connection.
And I thought it would be a nice project to finally try Puppy Linux.
It has been an uphill battle... nothing works easily, and all the guides seem to rely on the GUI.

My setup:

16Gb USB with two partitions, one for boot and the rest as persistent, running Fussapup64_9.5
As hardware, I got something very similar to: https://www.ieiworld.com/en/product-ns/model.php?II=4
One Intel ethernet controller I225-LM + 3 Intel ethernet controller I225-V
I had modified the grub files to allow me a serial console from boot(for some reason, it does not print out the init steps, but it works fine after that).
It has no issue connecting to the network when booting from the device drive (Oracle8), so I know it is not an HW issue.

For devx-tools and kernel headers, I downloaded (from another laptop and moved with a USB pen drive):
devx_fossapup64_9.5.sfs and kernel_sources-5.4.53-fossapup64.sfs
from https://distro.ibiblio.org/puppylinux/

I have also downloaded the complete intel driver pack from:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en ... -pack.html

After Installing the intel drivers, I can see them in the dmesg printout.
Just in case, I used rmmod to remove the old one and reinstalled with modprobe again.
I can also see the physical ethernet controllers in the lspci printout.
But,still the "ip a" and "ifconfig -a" commands print only the loopback lo...

Trying to force up the interface with ifup, ifconfig <interface> up, ip link.... etc
just print errors in the like of "interface does not exist"

Can anybody here help me to find a solution that is not based on the GUI?
Does anybody have a suggestion for my next steps?

[bigpuppyfan]

Try running

Code: Select all

/etc/rc.d/rc.network_eth  

for the interface to be created

[ICPenthusiast]

I did tried running

Code: Select all

/etc/rc.d/rc.network_eth

I also tried rebooting the whole system.
Out of desperation, I even edited

Code: Select all

/etc/resolv.conf

and added nameservers.
No change, the interfaces remains unrecognized

I'm truly baffled by this issue

[Jasper]

@ICPenthusiast

Is this the device?

This application requires booting from a HDD.......however you might be able to use it on USB drive.

https://gitlab.com/surfsara/pxeconfig

Releases:
https://gitlab.com/surfsara/pxeconfig/-/releases

[bigpup]

If you did get the correctly needed driver installed.

You may need the firmware updated.

Use this fdrv to replace the one in Fossapup64 9.5's install.
https://archive.org/download/Puppy_Linu ... 7dec22.sfs
Name this the same as the fdrv in the install and then swap them.

Reboot so it is now being used.

---

Another idea.

Try changing to a newer Linux kernel in Fossapup64 9.5

Here is how to do it:
viewtopic.php?t=317

change to a kernel newer than 5.8

That should get a kernel that has the drive in the kernel.

Also change to the newer fdrv as talked about above.

After changing the kernel make sure to do a complete power off/on reboot to make sure new kernel is being used.