Cannot find the fcoe kernel module in RHEL 8

Environment

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 8

Issue

• While trying to check the fcoe kernel module parameters, found out that is not included in the kernel in RHEL 8:

    # modinfo fcoe
    modinfo: ERROR: Module fcoe not found.
    # modprobe fcoe
    modprobe: FATAL: Module fcoe not found in directory /lib/modules/4.18.0-60.el8.x86_64
  

Resolution

Specific changes to Red Hat Enterprise 8 include:

• The fcoe.ko kernel module is no longer available. This removes support for software FCoE with Data Center Bridging enabled Ethernet adapters and drivers.
• Link-level software configuration via Data Center Bridging eXchange (DCBX) using lldpad is no longer supported for FCoE.
  • The fcoe-utils tools (specifically fcoemon) is configured by default to not validate DCB configuration or communicate with lldpad.
  • The lldpad integration in fcoemon might be permanently disabled.
• The libhbaapi and libhbalinux libraries are no longer used by fcoe-utils, and will not undergo any direct testing from Red Hat.

Support for the following remains unchanged:

• Currently supported offloading FCoE adapters that appear as Fibre Channel adapters to the operating system and do not use the fcoe-utils management tools, unless stated in a separate note. This applies to select adapters supported by the lpfc and qla2xxx FCoE drivers. Note that the bfa driver is not included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.
• Currently supported offloading FCoE adapters that do use the fcoe-utils management tools but have their own kernel drivers instead of fcoe.ko and manage DCBX configuration in their drivers and/or firmware, unless stated in a separate note. The fnic, bnx2fc, and qedf drivers will continue to be fully supported in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8.
• The libfc.ko and libfcoe.ko kernel modules that are required for some of the supported drivers covered by the previous statement.

Root Cause

Software-based FCoE has been deprecated in RHEL since version 7.4. As a result, the fcoe.ko kernel module is no longer available for creating software FCoE interfaces over Ethernet adapters and drivers. This change is due to a lack of industry adoption for software-managed FCoE.

This information is also noted in section 11.1.3 of the Considerations in Adopting RHEL 8 documentation.

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