mst start returns 'Module mst_pci not found in directory /lib/modules/6.8.12-9-pve'

[psabnyr304]

installed mft. Trying to start mst and it will not start. Here is the output:

root@PSNY-VM01:/DIST/MLNX_OFED_LINUX-24.10-2.1.8.0-debian12.5-x86_64/DEBS# mst start
Starting MST (Mellanox Software Tools) driver set
Loading MST PCI modulemodprobe: FATAL: Module mst_pci not found in directory /lib/modules/6.8.12-9-pve
- Failure: 1
Loading MST PCI configuration modulemodprobe: FATAL: Module mst_pciconf not found in directory /lib/modules/6.8.12-9-pve
- Failure: 1
Create devices
mst_pci driver not found
Unloading MST PCI module (unused)modprobe: FATAL: Module mst_pci not found.
- Failure: 1
Unloading MST PCI configuration module (unused)modprobe: FATAL: Module mst_pciconf not found.
- Failure: 1

seems the install does not install for the pve kernel? Just for Debian kernel? Not sure how to proceed here to get mst to start.

 

[alexskysilk]

you need to reboot once the installation is complete.

 

[psabnyr304]

Restarting didn't make a difference. same error.

 

[alexskysilk]

...which necessarily means your installation of ofed didnt actually complete.

Why do you need it in the first place?

 

[psabnyr304]

need to enable SR-IOV on the connect-x5 NIC. Need to list the MSt devices in order to do that. Unless there is some way I am unaware of? Here's output from the install. Looks like it installed to me, but I'm no linux expert.

apt install mft

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
mft
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
Need to get 49.2 MB of archives.
After this operation, 194 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://linux.mellanox.com/public/repo/mlnx_ofed/24.10-2.1.8.0/debian12.5/amd64 ./ mft 4.30.1-113 [49.2 MB]
Fetched 49.2 MB in 4s (13.6 MB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package mft.
(Reading database ... 115922 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../mft_4.30.1-113_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking mft (4.30.1-113) ...
Setting up mft (4.30.1-113) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.11.2-2) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.36-9+deb12u10) ...

root@PSNY-VM01:/DIST# pveversion
pve-manager/8.3.5/dac3aa88bac3f300 (running kernel: 6.8.12-9-pve)

root@PSNY-VM01:/DIST# cat /proc/version
Linux version 6.8.12-9-pve (build@proxmox) (gcc (Debian 12.2.0-14) 12.2.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils for Debian) 2.40) #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC PMX 6.8.12-9 (2025-03-16T19:18Z)

 

[alexskysilk]

mft # ofed.

 

[psabnyr304]

I'm not sure what you mean here. What are you suggesting?

 

[alexskysilk]

Installing OFED on debian is not done using apt directly. Once you decompress the tarball there is an installation script that has to run. It will prompt you to install its prerequisite packages before it will complete installation. Also, in some versions it will conflict with the proxmox-ve package so you would need to uninstall proxmox, install the ofed packages, and reinstall proxmox-ve afterwards.