LAN over USB Linux Driver Installation

Use this information to install the LAN over USB driver for Linux.

Current versions of Linux, such as RHEL5 Update 2 and SLES10 Service Pack 2, support the LAN over USB interface by default. This interface is detected and displayed during the installation of these operating systems. When you configure the device, use a static IP address of 169.254.95.130 with a subnet mask of 255.255.0.0.

Older Linux distributions might not detect the LAN over USB interface, and might require manual configuration. For information about configuring LAN over USB on specific Linux distributions, see http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?brand=5000008&lndocid=MIGR-5083207.

The IMM LAN over USB interface requires that the usbnet and cdc_ether drivers be loaded. If the drivers have not been installed, use modprobe to install them. When these drivers are loaded, the IMM USB network interface shows up as a network device in the operating system. To discover the name that the operating system has assigned to the IMM USB network interface, type:

dmesg | grep -i cdc ether

The interface is configured with ifconfig to have an IP address in the range 169.254.xxx.xxx. For example:

ifconfig IMM_device_name 169.254.1.102 netmask 255.255.0.0

This interface is configured to come up with an IP address in the 169.254.xxx.xxx range each time that the operating system is booted.