Any way to manually install a device driver? RTL8125 NIC not working/not supported

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1

I think the answer’s probably no, because after a lot of google-fu i still can’t find any way to do this :frowning:

i’m upgrading my setup, so bought and installed HAOS on an ASUS NUC14 Essential. the NUC has an integrated network controller, the realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE. it doesn’t work/isn’t detected by HA at all.

if i boot ubuntu from a usb, i can see that it detects the network controller but also can’t use it. if i then install the official drivers from Realtek it works absolutely fine.

however – i can’t find any way to install drivers on a HAOS system. i have found loads of posts highlighting the same issue with this specific network card (in this specific NUC too) not having native driver support in a whole bunch of linux kernels

i know i could: run it in a container, use a USB network card, use the WiFi etc. i don’t want to do any of these things for what i feel are entirely valid reasons - i want to use the RTL8125.

is there any way around this?

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Assuming you are running a Home Assistant OS install bare metal on the NUC, request support be added for your NIC here:

Until then (or if this applies Ethernet adapter Motorcomm YT6801 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter support in HAOS · Issue #3387 · home-assistant/operating-system · GitHub ) you can run HA in a VM. e.g. install Proxmox and add the NIC driver (if not supported natively). Then install HAOS, Installing Home Assistant OS using Proxmox 8

3

hi, thanks for the response and pointers :slight_smile:

the problem seems to have been known about for a while. i can’t find any mention of a fix being worked on, and i’ve already added some comments to the most recent issue i found mentioning the problem on github: Realtek RTL8125 ethernet Lan not supported by HA OS (ASUS NUC 14 essential) · Issue #3880 · home-assistant/operating-system · GitHub

as mentioned i’m not a fan of running it in a container or virtual environment, so i’ll return the NUC and components while i’m in the return window, and find another hardware platform.

4

As no one else supplied the requested information from the developer here: Realtek RTL8125 ethernet Lan not supported by HA OS (ASUS NUC 14 essential) · Issue #3880 · home-assistant/operating-system · GitHub you should do it and reply with the requested information.

1 Like
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thanks - have done so :slight_smile:

6

Hello, have you managed to solve this issue? I have GMKtec G10 with the same Realtek adapter and this issue still persists. I am baffled why HAOS is deployed with outdated drivers…

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Frankly, no you don’t.

Yes, the chipset is called RTL8125B, but it consist of many different hardware revisions, each of which need special handling (initialization, firmwares, etc.) So while you might both have “RTL8125B” chipsets onboard, the actual hardware and the patches in need of backporting, respectively the minimum kernel version to add support, can be (and most likely is) considerably different. For r8169 (the driver in charge of this hardware), the XID (as shown by dmesg) defining the exact chipset is e.g. up to “XID 641” for my older card (it’s shared by rtl810x, rtl8168/ rtl8169/ rtl8125/ rtl8126/ rtl8127, …), the details matter.

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I solved this by running Proxmox 9, which is based on a newer Debian.

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Same issue on a GMKtec NucBox G10 (AMD Ryzen 5 3500U) running HAOS 17.1 / Core 2026.3.4.
The onboard Realtek RTL8125 2.5GbE NIC is completely invisible to HAOS — ip link only shows loopback and Docker bridges. Ubuntu live USB on the same hardware detects the NIC just fine.
Currently running HA on WiFi only, which causes recurring WebSocket disconnection issues (“No PONG received after 27.5 seconds”) due to WiFi roaming between access points. A USB Ethernet dongle works as a workaround.
I’ve also commented on the related GitHub issue: RTL8125 Ethernet not recognized on Beelink SER5 Max (XID 689) - HAOS 17.1 · Issue #4587 · home-assistant/operating-system · GitHub
This is becoming a significant pain point — RTL8125 is the default NIC on most budget mini PCs (GMKtec, Beelink, ASUS NUC 14…) that are commonly recommended for Home Assistant. Native support would help a lot of users.