Unable to negotiate at 2.5G since 2.7.0 update
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Hello, I have a Netgear CM2000 modem that connects the to WAN port on my pfSense machine.
This used to show up as "unknown" connection speed on 2.6.0, but it would still function at 2.5G (the modem's multi gig light would come on).
Since the 2.7.0 update this will only negotiate at 1G. I confirmed this by looking at the modem light and also speed tests. Also, on the pfSense dashboard it thinks it's 1000baseT <full-duplex>.
The NIC is an Intel X550-T2 card. Any advice here would be awesome. Thanks!
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I forced this to 2500base-T and got it working.
It's just strange that 2.6.0 required me to set to auto (2500base-T wasn't an option on that version), and then on 2.7.0 its the opposite!
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@DeeSti take a look at the below video from Level1Techs around the 7:22 time mark, where he talks about the issues with the X550-T2 and a possible solution. I don't have one to try but seems like a "relatively easy" update.
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An NVM/Firmware update could certainly help there. The earlier drivers in 2.6 had no idea about 2.5G or 5G rates but could work if the card was allowed to choose and showed that 'Unknown' link state The newer drivers do know. I would still expect auto to work there but at least it's possible to force it.
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I have the Intel X550-T2 as well, and I did apply the updated firmware to the card (its a Dell "flavor" card).
When I did the upgrade to 2.7.0, I first uninstalled all the packages, did a restart, and then did the upgrade through pfSense. I waited about a half hour, but the system never came back up. When I went to check, it was sitting waiting for the WAN detection, and then after a minute or two the computer would reboot and cycle through again. I let it try rebooting a few times, and still got nowhere. I powered it completely down, waited a minute, and started it back up, and still got the same behavior. So I decided to do an install from a USB key this weekend.
That's when I managed to pinpoint what was going on. During the fresh install, when trying to auto-detect the WAN, the system isn't picking up the link for some reason. I have 1.5Gbps service here. When I selected auto-detect for the WAN connection and inserted the network cable, I'd get a quick amber flash on the link LED, followed by a quick green flash on the data LED. A pause of a second or two, and the same pattern. So I plugged the cable into the second port on the card, same thing. Plug in a LAN cable which was connected to a switch, and got the steady amber and a flashing green for data activity.
So I manually assigned WAN and LAN to the ix0 and ix1 ports, complete startup, and while there's an IP for LAN, there's no IP showing for WAN.
I'm running on bare metal - no VM or anything else. No problems at all on pfSense version 2.6.0, but after an upgrade to 2.7.0 or a fresh install to 2.7.0, the WAN is never picked up on this card.
I've got an identical card as a backup "just in case", and I've got a newer unused computer here, so I'm going to try installing 2.7.0 on that setup instead, but there's something definitely going on with 2.7.0 and the new version of FreeBSD.
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What is it connected to? Was it previously linking at 2.5G? Do you see 2.5G available as a manual speed?
Steve
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@stephenw10 Yes, its connected to a 2.5G switch, which it's been connected to for over a year and works fine on 2.6.0.
I tried another fresh install over the weekend on a different computer and the backup 10g NIC I have, and same problem.
I connect to a 10g port on the ISPs modem though, and it works. So i set pfSense to the 2500BaseT config instead of auto, and it works fine on the 2.5g switch now. I needed to get to the GUI to do it though, as I don't know where and which .conf file to edit to do it that way. So autoconfig isn't working right since the update.
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That appears to be a commonality in the new ixgbe driver in 2.7. It now correctly recognises 2.5G and 5G, for NICs that support them, but cannot auto-negotiate those speeds by default.
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@stephenw10 yep, I would agree with this. 2.7 has been solid for me except for needing to force 2500baseT on my WAN interface.
