12.10: ethernet device is not created on boot

Question

I have a problem with my wired interface - an appropriate device for it is just not created at boot. What is strange about it is that it never gets enabled on boot, but is always created after a reboot. This behavior is persistent regardless of whether the carrier is present or not.

Thus the output of some commands after boot is as follows:

• commands like ls /sys/class/net or ifconfig -a only display lo and wifi interfaces.
• lshw -C network shows the following for the Ethernet adapter:

  *-network UNCLAIMED     
       description: Ethernet controller  
       product: 82579V Gigabit Network Connection  
       vendor: Intel Corporation  
       physical id: 19  
       bus info: pci@0000:00:19.0  
       version: 04  
       width: 32 bits  
       clock: 33MHz  
       capabilities: pm msi cap_list
       configuration: latency=0
       resources: memory:d0400000-d041ffff memory:d0428000-d0428fff ioport:3020(size=32)

• lsmod | grep e1000 shows the module is loaded:

  e1000e 199273 0

After a reboot all the above commands report everything is okay and the Ethernet device is present. The only meaningful different I have found is in the output of dmesg | grep -e eth0 -e e100:

• after boot (no ethernet interface):

[   16.402581] e1000e: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - 2.0.0-k
[   16.402583] e1000e: Copyright(c) 1999 - 2012 Intel Corporation.
[   16.402622] e1000e 0000:00:19.0: setting latency timer to 64
[   16.402678] e1000e 0000:00:19.0: Interrupt Throttling Rate (ints/sec) set to dynamic conservative mode
[   16.402714] e1000e 0000:00:19.0: irq 46 for MSI/MSI-X
[   16.409024] eth0: Broadcom BCM4727 802.11 Hybrid Wireless Controller 5.100.82.112
[   17.394622] e1000e: probe of 0000:00:19.0 failed with error -3

• after reboot (ethernet interface is present):

[   15.208741] e1000e: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Driver - 2.0.0-k
[   15.208743] e1000e: Copyright(c) 1999 - 2012 Intel Corporation.
[   15.208777] e1000e 0000:00:19.0: setting latency timer to 64
[   15.208827] e1000e 0000:00:19.0: Interrupt Throttling Rate (ints/sec) set to dynamic conservative mode
[   15.208857] e1000e 0000:00:19.0: irq 46 for MSI/MSI-X
[   15.293928] eth0: Broadcom BCM4727 802.11 Hybrid Wireless Controller 5.100.82.112
[   15.470050] e1000e 0000:00:19.0: eth0: (PCI Express:2.5GT/s:Width x1) 2c:76:8a:e5:46:79
[   15.470055] e1000e 0000:00:19.0: eth0: Intel(R) PRO/1000 Network Connection
[   15.470103] e1000e 0000:00:19.0: eth0: MAC: 10, PHY: 11, PBA No: FFFFFF-0FF
[   20.404379] e1000e 0000:00:19.0: irq 46 for MSI/MSI-X
[   20.508146] e1000e 0000:00:19.0: irq 46 for MSI/MSI-X

What I have tried so far:

• compiling the latest version of the driver, that is available at Intel Support site;

• installing sysfsutils so my /etc/sysfs.conf looks like this:

  devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:19.0/enable = 1

but neither has solved the problem.

I have been googling for quite a while now, but have not found much useful information given my problem is so weird. Any ideas will be highly appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

I have found a solution! I pulled the battery out of my laptop for some time (over 30 seconds) and it worked! Thanks to AndresSM's answer here - Ethernet problems in Ubuntu 12.04.

I don't completely understand reasons behind this, but it seems that it has something to do with Wake-On-LAN and this could be the case:

1. something has disabled the network adapter at some point - could well be Windows (I don't have it installed for a long time already, but I can't recall when the issue started either);
2. then when I power on the laptop, the network card is disabled and Ubuntu does not recognize it at boot;
3. afterwards when I restart Ubuntu, it enables the card while stopping and it is available at start up again. The weird part in that case is why this enabling was not persistent.
4. after completely powering of the laptop by removing the battery the state of the network card was finally cleared. Note: I did not have Wake-On-LAN enabled at any point of time in BIOS.

The issue outlined above can be usually encountered on dual-boot systems and is covered here. The link was originally found in that same thread.

If anyone understands this topic better than I do right now, it would be great to learn how this really works. Thanks.