IBM Host Ethernet Adapter (HEA) for POWER6/POWER7 pSeries servers
An integrated Ethernet controller built into IBM POWER6 and POWER7 pSeries servers, branded as the Host Ethernet Adapter or Integrated Virtual Ethernet. It provided high-throughput networking that could be shared across logical partitions on those mid-2000s to early-2010s IBM Power systems.
recommendation
A candidate for future removal because the underlying hardware is tied to POWER6/POWER7 servers and IBM's own documentation confirms HEA is not supported on POWER9, POWER10, or Power11 systems. The driver still receives occasional janitorial cleanups upstream, but no new hardware ships with it and IBM directs current Power deployments toward virtual Ethernet via ibmveth instead. It is worth keeping for now to support remaining legacy pSeries estates, but its deployment base is shrinking and removal becomes reasonable once those machines age out.
repository signals
sources
- lore.kernel.org
Recent upstream attention exists, but it is lightweight maintenance/cleanup rather than evidence of growing deployment.
- lore.kernel.org
The driver still receives occasional treewide API adaptation work in net-next, indicating it is not abandoned upstream.
- cateee.net
CONFIG_EHEA is the IBM pSeries eHEA Ethernet driver, tying this directory to IBM pSeries HEA/LHEA hardware.
- ibm.com
IBM's current Power11-era docs say HEA is not supported on POWER9 and Power10 systems, implying no support on current-generation new systems.
- ibm.com
IBM Power9 documentation states HEA is not supported on POWER9, showing the feature had already dropped before modern Power generations.
- redbooks.ibm.com
IBM's Redpaper describes IVE/HEA as a POWER6-era feature, placing the hardware family in an older server generation.
codex reasoning notes (technical)
Obtained lore evidence with MCP lore_file_timeline on ehea_main.c; recent hits were 2024 cleanup/API-conversion patches and no removal-series signal surfaced. A follow-up MCP lore_regex removal query timed out, so I did not retry the same query. Deployment evidence came from web search results on official IBM docs plus LKDDb and IBM Redbooks: LKDDb identifies the driver as IBM pSeries eHEA, Redpaper places HEA/IVE in the POWER6 era, and IBM Power9/Power11 docs say HEA is unsupported on newer systems. That points to legacy-only deployments, likely existing PowerVM/pSeries estates, with ibmveth as the practical upstream path for new virtual-Ethernet deployments rather than new HEA-based hardware.