Are the i40e and ixgbe drivers really used by our Intel NICs?

Question

We recently got two QCT 2U4Node high-density servers. Each node is equipped with a XL710 dual 40G NIC with two QSPF+ ports and two QCT mezz cards that sport Intel 82599 and dual 10G SPF+ ports for a total 4 10G ports per node. We use genuine Intel DACs for connecdting XL710s' QSFP+ ports to the 40G QSFP+ ports of QCT LY8 swithes. For 10G ports, we use a set of inexpensive third party DACs connecting them to the 10G ports of two Arista 7280SE-68 switches.

Each of the eight nodes runs CentOS 7.1 x86_64.

Upon testing, we observed some packet drops (via netstat -i) over some 10G ports. As a result, I decided to build RPMs for the latest stable i40e and ixgbe drivers published by Intel on sourceforge. The steps are listed in the README of each driver's source, so I got both done and installed them on each node using yum -y --nogpgcheck localinstall.

Then, I rebooted all nodes. After they all came back up, I did modinfo i40e and modinfo ixgbe and saw both were the latest. Thus, I thought the update was done.

But today, I was in need of reviewing ethtool -i output for all nodes, and I got a surprise! Please see below. In summary:

What I did:

1. Built the RPMs per the REDME in both drivers' source distributions
2. On each node, `yum -y install --nogpgcheck localinstall ...
3. Rebooted all the nodes. Observe modinfo output to ensure the new version is loaded into the OS

But why ethtool -i still shows the "stock" version"? Did I miss any step in updating the two Intel drivers?

Thanks for any hints!

40G i40e

$ ansible topfses:bottomfses -a "/sbin/modinfo i40e" -u root|grep version
version:        1.3.38
rhelversion:    7.1
srcversion:     AC44711F498386802A6D524
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.11.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
version:        1.3.38
rhelversion:    7.1
srcversion:     AC44711F498386802A6D524
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.11.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
version:        1.3.38
rhelversion:    7.1
srcversion:     AC44711F498386802A6D524
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.11.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
version:        1.3.38
rhelversion:    7.1
srcversion:     AC44711F498386802A6D524
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.11.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
version:        1.3.38
rhelversion:    7.1
srcversion:     AC44711F498386802A6D524
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.11.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
version:        1.3.38
rhelversion:    7.1
srcversion:     AC44711F498386802A6D524
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.11.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
version:        1.3.38
rhelversion:    7.1
srcversion:     AC44711F498386802A6D524
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.11.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
version:        1.3.38
rhelversion:    7.1
srcversion:     AC44711F498386802A6D524
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.11.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
$ ansible topfses:bottomfses -a "/sbin/ethtool -i ens10f0" -u root|grep version
version: 1.0.11-k
firmware-version: f4.22 a1.1 n04.24 e800013fc
version: 1.0.11-k
firmware-version: f4.22 a1.1 n04.24 e800013fc
version: 1.0.11-k
firmware-version: f4.22 a1.1 n04.24 e800013fc
version: 1.0.11-k
firmware-version: f4.22 a1.1 n04.24 e800013fc
version: 1.0.11-k
firmware-version: f4.22 a1.1 n04.24 e800013fc
version: 1.0.11-k
firmware-version: f4.22 a1.1 n04.24 e800013fc
version: 1.0.11-k
firmware-version: f4.22 a1.1 n04.24 e800013fc
version: 1.0.11-k
firmware-version: f4.22 a1.1 n04.24 e800013fc

10G ixgbe

$ ansible topfses:bottomfses -a "/sbin/modinfo ixgbe" -u root|grep version
version:        4.1.2
rhelversion:    7.1
srcversion:     11CE41D9B741B44F4507285
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.11.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
version:        4.1.2
rhelversion:    7.1
srcversion:     11CE41D9B741B44F4507285
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.11.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
version:        4.1.2
rhelversion:    7.1
srcversion:     11CE41D9B741B44F4507285
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.11.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
version:        4.1.2
rhelversion:    7.1
srcversion:     11CE41D9B741B44F4507285
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.11.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
version:        4.1.2
rhelversion:    7.1
srcversion:     11CE41D9B741B44F4507285
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.11.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
version:        4.1.2
rhelversion:    7.1
srcversion:     11CE41D9B741B44F4507285
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.11.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
version:        4.1.2
rhelversion:    7.1
srcversion:     11CE41D9B741B44F4507285
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.11.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
version:        4.1.2
rhelversion:    7.1
srcversion:     11CE41D9B741B44F4507285
vermagic:       3.10.0-229.11.1.el7.x86_64 SMP mod_unload modversions 
$ ansible topfses:bottomfses -a "/sbin/ethtool -i ens20f0" -u root|grep version
version: 4.0.1-k-rh7.1
firmware-version: 0x800004e0
version: 4.0.1-k-rh7.1
firmware-version: 0x800004e0
version: 4.0.1-k-rh7.1
firmware-version: 0x800004e0
version: 4.0.1-k-rh7.1
firmware-version: 0x800004e0
version: 4.0.1-k-rh7.1
firmware-version: 0x800004e0
version: 4.0.1-k-rh7.1
firmware-version: 0x800004e0
version: 4.0.1-k-rh7.1
firmware-version: 0x800004e0
version: 4.0.1-k-rh7.1
firmware-version: 0x800004e0