Latest Ubuntu Alpha Damaging Intel NICs

by Marco Chiappetta — Friday, September 26, 2008, 01:51 PM EDT

It appears that a bug in a network driver used in the kernel of the latest alpha release of the popular Ubuntu Linux distro is damaging Intel network controllers, sometimes irreparably.

In bug #263555 on the bugs.launchpad.net website titled, "[intrepid] 2.6.27 e1000e driver places Intel ICH8 and ICH9 gigE chipsets at risk", it is noted that the NVRAM on Intel 82566 and 82567 based LAN controllers is being corrupted, but the bug seems to have affected only notebook users at this point...

"In some circumstances it appears possible for the 2.6.27-rc kernels to corrupt the NVRAM used by some Intel network parts to store data such as MAC addresses.

This is limited to the new e1000e driver, and reports have only appeared from users of "82566 and 82567 based LAN parts (ich8 and ich9)" (to quote Intel). The reports seem to be isolated to laptops, but it is not clear if this is because desktop/server parts are not vulnerable, or if use cases simply increase the chances of laptop users being hit.

Once this corruption has occurred, recovery may be possible via a BIOS update, but may well require replacement of the hardware. Use of Intel's IABUTIL.EXE is strongly discouraged, as it will worsen the problem to the point where the network part will no longer appear on the PCI bus."

A myriad of users / testers have commented on the bug and there is a patch available for another similar networking bug, that unfortunately is not 100% effective. There are also instructions in the comments that explain how to save a copy of the data stored in the NIC's eeprom, should user's currently unaffected by the bug want to store a backup in the event the bug pops up at a later point.

A common thread among users is that the distro should be pulled down until the bug is fixed. Although this is an alpha release and bugs are expected, testing an alpha release shouldn't result in a damaged hardware. What say you?

Tags: Intel, Ubuntu, Nic, test, Alpha, Mag, Aging, ICS, AG, AMA, BU, AM

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com