Package: firmware-bnx2x Version: 20210818-1 Severity: grave On Linux 5.16, the bnx2x module requests firmware 7.13.21.0:
# modinfo bnx2x filename: /lib/modules/5.16.0-2-amd64/kernel/drivers/net/ethernet/broadcom/bnx2x/bnx2x.ko firmware: bnx2x/bnx2x-e2-7.13.21.0.fw firmware: bnx2x/bnx2x-e1h-7.13.21.0.fw firmware: bnx2x/bnx2x-e1-7.13.21.0.fw This firmware is not present in the firmware-bnx2x package. Now, my understanding is that the bnx2x module can fall back to an earlier version (7.13.15.0) as needed, but in practice that might not actually help, because update-initramfs only looks for the firmware version from the module information and doesn't include any other version: # update-initramfs -u W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/bnx2x/bnx2x-e2-7.13.21.0.fw for module bnx2x W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/bnx2x/bnx2x-e1h-7.13.21.0.fw for module bnx2x W: Possible missing firmware /lib/firmware/bnx2x/bnx2x-e1-7.13.21.0.fw for module bnx2x Since no firmware is included in the initramfs, the bnx2x module unsurprisingly fails to initialize on boot: kernel: bnx2x 0000:02:00.1: firmware: failed to load bnx2x/bnx2x-e2-7.13.21.0.fw (-2) kernel: bnx2x 0000:02:00.1: Direct firmware load for bnx2x/bnx2x-e2-7.13.21.0.fw failed with error -2 kernel: bnx2x 0000:02:00.1: firmware: failed to load bnx2x/bnx2x-e2-7.13.15.0.fw (-2) kernel: bnx2x 0000:02:00.1: Direct firmware load for bnx2x/bnx2x-e2-7.13.15.0.fw failed with error -2 Adding insult to injury, it doesn't look like it's possible to recover from this state - as far as I could tell, once bnx2x fails to initialize, it's game over until the next reboot, even if the module is unloaded and reloaded, and even if the PCI device is removed and rescanned. This basically means that, when booting current Debian Unstable with Linux 5.16, bnx2x NICs become *permanently unusable*, potentially locking users and admins out of the system. My suggested short-term fix would be to update the firmware-bnx2x package to include the 7.13.21.0 firmware version. There's also a discussion to be had with regard to update-initramfs, which should perhaps try harder to find potentially compatible firmware versions - indeed, if update-initramfs had included 7.13.15.0, I believe this issue would have been avoided. For those affected, here's the workaround I used: 1. Manually download the 7.13.21.0 firmware files from https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/firmware/linux-firmware.git/tree/bnx2x 2. Put the files in /lib/firmware/bnx2x 3. Run update-initramfs -u 4. Reboot
