Some network driver versions changed in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4

Solution Verified - Updated -

Environment

  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4 and above

    • Specifically within kernel versions kernel-4.18.0-305.el8 and above

Issue

  • The network driver version changed in ethtool output
  • The version for a network driver in my system drastically changed format

Resolution

  • Starting in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.4, network driver versions will begin matching the kernel version installed except for drivers which explicitly override versions with their own versions.

Root Cause

  • A commit to the upstream kernel works to streamline driver versioning. This commit is backported into the 8.4 kernel and above.

    • For example, e1000e now reports the kernel version;

      # ethtool -i enp1s0 | head -2
driver: e1000e
version: 4.18.0-305.17.1.el8_4.x86_64

  • Note The change does not currently effect all network drivers. Some drivers override values returned by ethtool, however, over time, some of these drivers may change their override behavior.

    • For example, the virtio_net driver shipped with Red Hat Enterprise Linux still reports a version that does not match the kernel version in the latest Red Hat-provided kernel;

      # uname -r
4.18.0-305.17.1.el8_4.x86_64

# ethtool -i enp1s0 | head -2
driver: virtio_net
version: 1.0.0

    • But the virtio_net driver shipped with the upstream kernel now reports the kernel version for its version:

      # uname -r 
5.5.0-rc6+.x86_64

# ethtool -i enp1s0 | head -2
driver: virtio_net
version: 5.5.0-rc6+

  • Note Make sure to plan accordingly if tooling within a target environment contains driver version-specific behavior.

  • The change was introduced upstream in an effort to begin unifying and standardizing module/driver versioning to mitigate and reduce potential issues induced by mismatching versioning within userspace tooling. The change currently effects versioning as reported by ethtool, and, as such, other modules are still able to report their own versioning (e.g. HP's Smart Array kernel module, hpsa). For more information on this, please refer to the knowledge base article Why Red Hat driver version numbers do not match with the upstream numbers or with the 3rd party version numbers?.

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