Why is the Ethernet not working with AUKEY USB C Hub?

USB ports are working just fine - only the Ethernet does not work.

uname / syslog output:

Linux matteo-notebook 4.10.0-041000-generic #201702191831 SMP Sun Feb 19 23:33:19 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

NAME="Ubuntu"
VERSION="16.04.2 LTS (Xenial Xerus)"
ID=ubuntu
ID_LIKE=debian
PRETTY_NAME="Ubuntu 16.04.2 LTS"
VERSION_ID="16.04"


Feb 25 02:26:55 matteo-notebook NetworkManager[1075]: <info>  [1487986015.1755] device (enx00e14c687c7e): state change: unmanaged -> unavailable (reason 'managed') [10 20 2]
Feb 25 02:26:55 matteo-notebook kernel: [ 4757.383930] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): enx00e14c687c7e: link is not ready
Feb 25 02:26:55 matteo-notebook NetworkManager[1075]: <info>  [1487986015.1828] keyfile: add connection in-memory (5124e103-6869-3cb6-b4bf-88de4e4bca18,"Wired connection 2")
Feb 25 02:26:55 matteo-notebook NetworkManager[1075]: <info>  [1487986015.1840] settings: (enx00e14c687c7e): created default wired connection 'Wired connection 2'
Feb 25 02:26:55 matteo-notebook kernel: [ 4757.388887] IPv6: ADDRCONF(NETDEV_UP): enx00e14c687c7e: link is not ready

Solution 1:

I had similar problems with a Inateck USB3 hub with ethernet on 16.04 LTS. It turned out that this hub shows up as Manufacturer: VIA Labs, Inc. in /var/log/syslog and usb 2-1.4: Manufacturer: Realtek (the ethernet device).

Follow the instructions as given above even though it refers to a Linksys hub. It should work for any hub with a Realtek ethernet chip.

In my case ifconfig showed no wired device at all, so I could not check it with ethtool. Once the driver was installed, it did show up but not as eth0 rather as enx00e04c110060. When I plugged the ethernet cable in, Network Manager showed it as a wired device and ifconfig showed its IP address.

The steps are:

1. download the Realtek driver from Realtek here - this is a bz2 compressed tar file

2. Unpack it

   cd Downloads                #or wherever it went
   tar xvf name-of-tar         #replace with actual name!
   

3. Install it

   sudo make install           # (I got some SSL signing warnings that I ignored) 
   

4. Remove the old driver

   modprobe -r cdc_ether
   

5. Load the new driver

   modprobe r8152              # (automatically done by make install) 
   

6. Regenerate the initramfs

   update-initramfs -u         # so as to get it to load at boot
   

Solution 2:

In my case the problem has been related to this issue: https://github.com/rickhofstede/linksys_usb3gigv1_linux/issues/2

I did not have the driver installed he is mentioning, so I simply had to install the code from the repository following the instructions there: https://github.com/rickhofstede/linksys_usb3gigv1_linux

Techical background: Apparently the AUKEY hub uses the Realtek RTL8153 chip - therefore this driver needs to be installed.