Updated Realtek NIC drivers missing in PfSense 2.6.0

astronomik

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.

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

stephenw10

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

richalgeni

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.

stephenw10

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

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

richalgeni

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

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

richalgeni

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.

stephenw10

Hmm, well I would have expected those to work. And I certainly wouldn't expect it to hang the firewall. I suspect something else was in play there beyond just the NIC/driver. The multiport cards are far less common, something in the PCIe bridge ICs maybe? Complete speculation!

Steve

richalgeni

I understand, and agree wholeheartedly! However, I don't have a spare LGA1151 motherboard and CPU for which to try.

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

https://photos.app.goo.gl/qKUNVuHkkMy8TNQF8

Is sorted with a RealTek RTL8125BG Chipsets

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

Are both sorted with a RealTek RTL8125 Chipset
(2 of them on one card)

RTL8125-RTL8125B(S)(G)
So both cards should be all supported by the driver 1.97.00 for pfSense as shown above.

tgdsilva

@rk0 can you point me to the manual steps you reference in this post to update Realtek drivers? I can't seem to find it. I recently bought a mini pc that as Realtek NICs. I am having the same problem other users are describing. Please point me to the manual steps.

RK0

@tgdsilva this info I copied and edited from my post at https://forum.netgate.com/topic/166746/realtek-re-kmod-missing-in-pfsense-2-6-repository/29?_=1669636929416

I did a total PfSense reload/reformat of my Lenovo ThinkCentre M90n IoT system with version 2.6.0.

No errors on any adapters after I updated the Realtek drivers per the procedure below.

First, I made sure the BIOS level of the system was at the most current release per the Lenovo support site at pcsupport.lenovo.com. The system BIOS settings were put into pure UEFI mode, CSM enabled, Secure Boot disabled. I also disabled wifi on the M90n (PfSense can't "understand" the built in wifi card, and I have AP's anyway), disabled the serial ports on the unit, and set it to return to last power state if the power goes out. The file system was installed "fresh"...the ZFS file system and PfSense version 2.6.0, since ZFS will be the default file system going forward.

It took the backup XML file restore settings from my 2.5.2 installation with no issues.

I used SSH to log in and open a command prompt as admin.

I then issued the commands to download the revised Realtek drivers from freebsd

fetch -v https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:12:amd64/latest/All/realtek-re-kmod-197.00.pkg
pkg install -f -y realtek-re-kmod-197.00.pkg

I then loaded nano...just because it is easier than vi

pkg install nano

I then created a /boot/loader.conf.local file with the entries

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

...and then rebooted the system

Logged back in after the reboot, disabled ssh, and looked for errors....

There were none.

stephenw10

You can just use pkg add dircetly:

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

You can append those lines with echo:

echo 'if_re_load="YES"' >> /boot/loader.conf.local
echo 'if_re_name="/boot/modules/if_re.ko"' >> /boot/loader.conf.local

Check the boot logs for the new driver version.

Steve

tgdsilva

@rk0 Thank you very much for your detailed reply. I was able to follow and install the new drivers!

tgdsilva

@stephenw10 Thank you very much for these instructions. They make it very quick and easy!

ITWorxNZ

@stephenw10 Thanks for the details, I also followed the instructions and the install worked with our PFSense box.

However, the newer driver borked the re0: WAN pppoe0 interface, which according to the kernel logs is a RealTek 8169/8169S/8169SB(L)/8110S/8110SB(L) Gigabit Ethernet add-in card. The connection came up, but it didn't stay up.

The re1: LAN interface (RealTek 8168/8111 B/C/CP/D/DP/E/F/G PCIe Gigabit Ethernet) built-in port seemed to still work fine.

As soon as I went back to the native FreeBSD driver, all was well again. Might there be a problem with different Realtek controllers on the same PFSense install? Would trying a slightly older version of the driver be any value?

Edit: Just saw above that the 8169 chipset is not supported by the 197 driver. Well, ain't that just grand...

stephenw10

Hmm, well it must support it to some extent since it did attach and come up initially.

At least it's an add-in card so you can replace it.

Steve

ITWorxNZ

@stephenw10 True. But that entire box is meant to be a temporary replacement, until we can find another small low-power PC to take over running PFSense. Are Intel controllers preferable to Realtek ones, or is that no longer an issue?