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    Updated Realtek NIC drivers missing in PfSense 2.6.0

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    • stephenw10S
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      Look at the ifconfig output in pfSense and check the switch config for the connected port.

      In re(4) the flow-control values are set as media option:

      [22.05-RELEASE][admin@apu.stevew.lan]/root: ifconfig -m re0
      re0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
      	options=8209b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE>
      	capabilities=18399b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,WOL_UCAST,WOL_MCAST,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE,NETMAP>
      	ether 00:0d:b9:37:30:10
      	media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
      	status: active
      	supported media:
      		media autoselect mediaopt flowcontrol
      		media autoselect
      		media 1000baseT mediaopt full-duplex,flowcontrol,master
      		media 1000baseT mediaopt full-duplex,flowcontrol
      		media 1000baseT mediaopt full-duplex,master
      		media 1000baseT mediaopt full-duplex
      		media 1000baseT mediaopt master
      		media 1000baseT
      		media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex,flowcontrol
      		media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex
      		media 100baseTX
      		media 10baseT/UTP mediaopt full-duplex,flowcontrol
      		media 10baseT/UTP mediaopt full-duplex
      		media 10baseT/UTP
      		media none
      	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
      

      Flow control should be negotiated so only enabled if both sides support it but....

      sokeadaS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • sokeadaS
        sokeada @stephenw10
        last edited by sokeada

        @stephenw10 said in Updated Realtek NIC drivers missing in PfSense 2.6.0:

        Look at the ifconfig output in pfSense and check the switch config for the connected port.

        In re(4) the flow-control values are set as media option:

        [22.05-RELEASE][admin@apu.stevew.lan]/root: ifconfig -m re0
        re0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
        	options=8209b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE>
        	capabilities=18399b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,WOL_UCAST,WOL_MCAST,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE,NETMAP>
        	ether 00:0d:b9:37:30:10
        	media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
        	status: active
        	supported media:
        		media autoselect mediaopt flowcontrol
        		media autoselect
        		media 1000baseT mediaopt full-duplex,flowcontrol,master
        		media 1000baseT mediaopt full-duplex,flowcontrol
        		media 1000baseT mediaopt full-duplex,master
        		media 1000baseT mediaopt full-duplex
        		media 1000baseT mediaopt master
        		media 1000baseT
        		media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex,flowcontrol
        		media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex
        		media 100baseTX
        		media 10baseT/UTP mediaopt full-duplex,flowcontrol
        		media 10baseT/UTP mediaopt full-duplex
        		media 10baseT/UTP
        		media none
        	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
        

        Flow control should be negotiated so only enabled if both sides support it but....

        mine is looks different from your, I don't see flow control. In my dell switch said flow control is enabled by default.

        Bro, in VLAN port setting, there is Ingress Filtering Enable, but i'm not sure if this cause the problem, i did some research Ingress Filtering is to protect VLAN hopping so I guest is not related, am i right?

        658a3ffa-7e17-491d-9d94-4e7050ed09e3-image.png

        135f348a-02e6-4add-b407-beb8d0c0479e-image.png

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          No ingress filtering is unlikely to be related.

          The alternative driver must have some other way to set flow control then. Check the available sysctls.

          Steve

          sokeadaS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • sokeadaS
            sokeada @stephenw10
            last edited by

            @stephenw10 said in Updated Realtek NIC drivers missing in PfSense 2.6.0:

            No ingress filtering is unlikely to be related.

            The alternative driver must have some other way to set flow control then. Check the available sysctls.

            Steve

            I've tried to type sysctls but message error command not found. I've found this in pfSense doc, can I use this just changed from hw.ix.flow_control="0" to hw.re.flow_control="3"

            0 disable, 3 full control.

            5cfb8cba-b65b-462f-8952-717d09d425c8-image.png

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              Only if the alt driver presents those sysctls. The default driver uses media opts so it does not:

              [22.05-RELEASE][admin@apu.stevew.lan]/root: sysctl hw.re
              sysctl: unknown oid 'hw.re'
              

              Steve

              sokeadaS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • sokeadaS
                sokeada @stephenw10
                last edited by

                @stephenw10 said in Updated Realtek NIC drivers missing in PfSense 2.6.0:

                Only if the alt driver presents those sysctls. The default driver uses media opts so it does not:

                [22.05-RELEASE][admin@apu.stevew.lan]/root: sysctl hw.re
                sysctl: unknown oid 'hw.re'
                

                Steve

                here's bro
                4112905e-f9ec-4588-afc3-fc4885a0b8e8-image.png

                I've added some tunes suggested by w0w but problem still exist, shall I remove it?
                5d33e31a-a38f-438d-bc94-af3ea08e936a-image.png

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • stephenw10S
                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                  last edited by

                  Hmm, nothing there either. I would usually go to the source at that point.

                  sokeadaS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • sokeadaS
                    sokeada @stephenw10
                    last edited by sokeada

                    @stephenw10 said in Updated Realtek NIC drivers missing in PfSense 2.6.0:

                    Hmm, nothing there either. I would usually go to the source at that point.

                    anything else I can try, bro? if everything look normal, it's ok bro, let's it be and I don't get any complain about disconnection from user either. I really appreciate your time and support. :)

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • R
                      richalgeni
                      last edited by

                      Apparently the 196.04 release has been removed, as the fetch command can no longer find it. Does anyone have the location of the updated package?

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        Use .pkg. But also you don't need to fetch it first, you can just add it directly:

                        [2.6.0-RELEASE][admin@cedev-3.stevew.lan]/root: pkg add https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:12:amd64/latest/All/realtek-re-kmod-196.04.pkg
                        Fetching realtek-re-kmod-196.04.pkg: 100%  105 KiB 107.7kB/s    00:01    
                        Installing realtek-re-kmod-196.04...
                        Extracting realtek-re-kmod-196.04: 100%
                        =====
                        Message from realtek-re-kmod-196.04:
                        
                        --
                        Add the following lines to your /boot/loader.conf
                        to override the built-in FreeBSD re(4) driver.
                        
                        if_re_load="YES"
                        if_re_name="/boot/modules/if_re.ko"
                        
                        By default, the size of allocated mbufs is enough
                        to receive the largest Ethernet frame supported
                        by the card.  If your memory is highly fragmented,
                        trying to allocate contiguous pages (more than
                        4096 bytes) may result in driver hangs.
                        For this reason the value is tunable at boot time,
                        e.g. if you don't need Jumbo frames you can lower
                        the memory requirements and avoid this issue with:
                        
                        hw.re.max_rx_mbuf_sz="2048"
                        

                        Then add those lines to loader.conf.local and reboot.

                        Steve

                        R T T 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                        • R
                          richalgeni @stephenw10
                          last edited by richalgeni

                          @stephenw10 Thank you so much Stephen!!! Worked like a champ! One caveat, I had disabled the admin user, and created a new admin user, per security best practices, but the new admin user was unable to install the package, as it had insufficient privileges. Simple remedy was to re-enable admin, use that to install, then re-disable.

                          Thanks again!
                          Rich

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • A
                            astronomik
                            last edited by

                            This drivers kills Wireguard performance. After entering those two lines:

                            if_re_load="YES"
                            if_re_name="/boot/modules/if_re.ko"

                            and validating that the driver was loaded my Wireguard speed decreases to 210 Mbps from 400 Mbps which is my ISP speed. When I remove those two lines and reboot the speed goes back to normal which is 400 Mbps. Open VPN appears to be unaffected at 400 Mbps.

                            This is lab test while directly connected to router.

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                              tomv @stephenw10
                              last edited by tomv

                              @stephenw10 said in Updated Realtek NIC drivers missing in PfSense 2.6.0:

                              https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:12:amd64/latest/All/realtek-re-kmod-196.04.pkg

                              I can't retrieve this file but I did find a newer version.

                              Has anyone tested this?

                              https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:12:amd64/latest/All/realtek-re-kmod-197.00.pkg

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • stephenw10S
                                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                last edited by

                                Not as far as I know. It's probably fine though.

                                Use quarterly if you still want 196.04:
                                https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:12:amd64/quarterly/All/realtek-re-kmod-196.04.pkg

                                Steve

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • R
                                  richalgeni
                                  last edited by

                                  My experience with the Realtek Nics was not a good in regards to pfSense. I have 3 Realtek cards, 1-4 port, and 2-2 ports. While the driver reference above did allow pfSense to see the cards, that was about all it could do. Once I activated the interfaces, pfSense would hang hard. It might take a minute or two, but nothing would get pfSense to work. Even cold boots. This was not in virtual machines, but bare metal installs. I changed the cards out, same thing. I took the I350 card out of my workstation, and inserted into my pfSense box, and after reloading pfSense from scratch, it worked fine. I put the Realtek cards back in, and sure enough, nothing worked. Before activating the Realtek card, I could run web configuration fine. Once I activated even one interface, after a short period of time, nothing. Not even a ping. The Realtek cards work fine in Windows 10 Professional and Ubuntu 22.04, so I will use them in my client boxes. I purchased an additional I350 4 port card on EBay, and that works perfectly in pfSense.

                                  R 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                  • stephenw10S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    Hmm, that's odd. Most Realtek NICs, Gigabit, will be recognised and will work but might show connection issues or just stop passing traffic (watchdog timeouts). The newer 2.5G Realteks NICs will not be recognised at all without the alternative driver but mostly work fine with it.

                                    What chipset did those NICs have?

                                    Steve

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • R
                                      RK0 @richalgeni
                                      last edited by RK0

                                      @richalgeni running PfSense 2.6.0 and two integrated Realtek RTL8111K and RTL8111H integrated ethernet adapters with the 196.04 drivers, I've had zero issues. (However, with the default PfSense RTL8111 drivers, there were plenty of issues)

                                      I did also put in that adjustment to the loader.conf.local file to limit memory, since I don't use jumbo frames on the network at all.

                                      Also...I found I had to have under System > Advanced > Networking the following settings...at one point I was experimenting with them, and the system did hard lock...so I don't touch them now:
                                      Hardware Checksum Offloading checked
                                      Hardware TCP Segmentation Offloading checked
                                      Hardware Large Receive Offloading checked
                                      hn ALTQ support unchecked

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • R
                                        richalgeni
                                        last edited by

                                        It's important to note that these were add-in cards. I will take a picture of them tomorrow, and post them.

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • ?
                                          A Former User
                                          last edited by

                                          Here are the Realtek Chipsets that will be supported from the Driver 1.97.00

                                          RTL8401-RTL8402
                                          RTL8411-RTL8411B
                                          RTL8125-RTL8125B(S)(G)
                                          RTL8168B-RTL8168E-RTL8168H
                                          RTL8111DP-RTL8111EP-RTL8111FP
                                          RTL8101E-RTL8102E-RTL8103E-RTL8105E-RTL8106E-RTL8107E
                                          RTL8111B-RTL8111C-RTL8111D-RTL8111E-RTL8111F-RTL8111G(S)-RTL8111H(S)-RTL8118(A)(S)-RTL8119i-RTL8111L-RTL8111K
                                          
                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • R
                                            richalgeni
                                            last edited by

                                            https://photos.app.goo.gl/qKUNVuHkkMy8TNQF8
                                            https://photos.app.goo.gl/6D8XTLtKi1MVxb6V9
                                            https://photos.app.goo.gl/vSBrwxPYjisRqXvn9

                                            Here are the three cards I tried. After they didn't work in pfSense, I loaded the 4 port card into a FreeNAS machine. One of the 2 port cards is in a machine in my office, replacing a 100 mb card. The other 2 port card is in my workstation, but is not currently connected to anything.

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