Is there a way to get Debian 7 vm network work under Incus 6.6?

Incus
, ,
1

Hello!

I have a problem with Debian 7.11 VM NIC under Incus 6.6. It only shows “lo” interface.

From Incus side, it is using “eth0” interface:
eth0:
nictype: bridged
parent: vlan50
type: nic

(VLAN is working, as some others instances are using it).

incus info old_deb

is showing that interface is up, but packages are not sent or received.

From VM side

**ip link show**

shows only “lo” interface

**/etc/network/interface**

includes simple configuration to just bring “eth0” up and configure ip address, network and gateway

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback
auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
address
…

**lspci | grep -i eth**

05:00.0 Ethernet controller: Red Hat, Inc Device 1041 (rev 01)

**lshw -C network**

*-network UNCLAIMED
description: Ethernet controller
product: Red Hat, Inc
vendor: Red Hatm Inc
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:05:00.0
version: 01
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: msix pm pciexpress cap_list
configuration: latency=0
resources: iomemory:38400-383ff memory:fe0400000-fe040fff …

As it is “UNCLAIMED” it seems to be a driver issue.

When I was looking loaded “virtio” modules (lsmod | grep virtio), I saw that “virtio_net” was not loaded. So I tried to load it manually (modprobe virtio_net) and also added it to “/etc/modules”. Although the module was now loaded automatically, it did not solve the problem and network controller was still in “UNCLAIMED” status.

I upgraded linux kernel to 3.16, which should be last supported kernel for Debian 7.11 but that did not solve the problem. So I am kind of stuck here.

I know that with some other hypervisors it is sometimes necessary to change network driver (rtl / intel). I am not sure, it is the case with Incus.

It is very old Debian, but Is there a way to get Debian 7.11 vm network work under Incus 6.6?

2

As additional info:

  1. I only see “virtio-pci” directory under “/sys/bus/pci/drivers/” so dynamically “virtio-net” drivers are not loaded.
  2. “cat /boot/config-3.16.0.0.bpo.4-amd64 | grep -i virtio” displays:

CONFIG_NET_9P_VIRTIO=m
CONFIG_VIRTIO_BLK=m
CONFIG_SCSI_VIRTIO=m
CONFIG_VIRTIO_NET=m
CONFIG_VIRTIO_CONSOLE=m
CONFIG_HW_RANDOM_VIRTIO=m
CONFIG_VIRTIO_PCI=m
CONFIG_VIRTIO_BALLOON=m

  1. “lsmod | grep -i virtio” displays modules:
    virtio_net
    virtio_scsi
    scsi_mod
    virtio_pci
    virtio_ring
    virtio

  2. “lspci -nnk | grep -i eth” displays two devices:

05:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Red Hat, Inc Device [1af4:1041] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Red Hat, Inc Device [1af4:1100]
06:00.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Red Hat, Inc Device [1af4:1041] (rev 01)
Subsystem: Red Hat, Inc Device [1af4:1100]

(those two should be added “eth0” and “eth1” cards).

  1. “/etc/network/interfaces” is configured like this at the moment:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

auto eth1
iface eth1 inet dhcp

  1. “service networking restart” gives errors:

Cannot find device “eth0”
Cannot find device “eth1”

  1. “ifup eth0” command gives error:

Cannot find device “eth0”
Bind socket to interface: No such device
Failed to bring up eth0

  1. “incus info <vm-name>” display that “eth0” and “eth1” states are up for this vm.

  2. both interfaces are “bridged” type from profile side:

eth0:
nictype: bridged
parent: vlan50
type: nic
eth1:
name: eth1
nictype: bridged
parent: vlan50
type: nic

Any ideas?
Should Debian 7.x vm network work with Incus 6.6 or it will not work and I should use another hypervisor for older Linux machines (ProxMox VE, XCP-ng,…)?

Regards,
Raul

3

FYI, I also faced difficulties to run a legacy (but mandatory) Debian 8 inside an Incus VM.

The simple trick I finally used was to install a more recent kernel from Debian backports! Linux 4.9 was enough to let the VM run (standard Debian 8 has Linux 3.16).

Also, if you move from one virtual hardware to a different one (it was my case, moving out from vSphere), remember to set MODULES=most in initramfs config (and run update-initramfs), so that it will embed all required virtio modules used with Incus.

4

An alternative option would be to change the network driver to E1000 in the qemu config but that requires properly a newer Incus version on the host. Take a look at Incus VM with e1000e Network Driver usually all older virtualisation systems used this ethernet driver on default before virtio got popular.