Permanently fixing Realtek networking on Ubuntu Natty

So here we are again. Kernel upgrade, then reboot => no network. Last week a kernel upgrade borked my network again, and it took a while before I remembered that I needed the r8168 module (see last posting).

Today it happened again. So I think to myself "There must be a better way."  It turns out there is:  It is called DKMS, the "Dynamic Kernel Module Support".  Essentially it works by registering the module for rebuild whenever the kernel is upgraded.


Here's what I did:

1. Copy the source code to /usr/src/r8168-8.023.00 - the directory name must be MODULE-VERSION
2. Create a dkms.conf:

   ---

   PACKAGE_NAME="r8168"
   PACKAGE_VERSION="8.023.00"
   AUTOINSTALL="yes"
   
   MAKE[0]="'make' modules"
   BUILT_MODULE_NAME[0]="r8168"
   BUILT_MODULE_LOCATION[0]="src"
   DEST_MODULE_LOCATION[0]="/kernel/drivers/net"
   

   ---

3. Tell DKMS about the module: sudo dkms add -m r8168 -v 8.023.00
4. Build it: sudo dkms build -m r8168 -v 8.023.00
5. And finally install it: sudo dkms install -m r8168 -v 8.023.00
6. At this point, you can use DKMS to build a deb package if you wish.  In any case, further kernel upgrades will magically build and install the module.

Update 2012-01-30: As pointed out by Ben Tebulin in a comment, the make command needs an extra level of quotes; see this Debian bugreport.