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    Trouble with WAN not being able to get correct speed

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • J
      Jarhead @kilasin
      last edited by

      @kilasin As I said, verify the device you're plugging into first.
      There may be a 1g port and a 10g port on it.

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      • stephenw10S
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
        last edited by

        So you're passing that NIC through to the VM?

        What is the actual connection here, the physical link?

        Try running: ifconfig -vvvm ix0 to see what speeds it can link at.

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        • K
          kilasin @stephenw10
          last edited by

          @stephenw10 Yes, I am passing the 10G nic through the VM so Unraid does not see it.

          The actual connection is being connected to 10G nic card. Here is what I ran from your command

          ix0: flags=1008843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST,LOWER_UP> metric 0 mtu 1500
          options=48138b8<VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_UCAST,WOL_MCAST,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWFILTER,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
          capabilities=4f53fbb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,TSO6,LRO,WOL_UCAST,WOL_MCAST,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWFILTER,VLAN_HWTSO,NETMAP,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6,HWSTATS,MEXTPG>
          ether 6c:92:bf:48:c0:a0
          inet6 fe80::6e92:bfff:fe48:c0a0%ix0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x1
          media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
          status: active
          supported media:
          media autoselect
          media 100baseTX
          media 1000baseT
          media 10Gbase-T
          nd6 options=23<PERFORMNUD,ACCEPT_RTADV,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>

          It appears to auto select the 1G speed, how do I change that into the 10G speed?

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          • stephenw10S
            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
            last edited by

            It's set to auto negotiate and is negotiating 1G. So the port at the other end might be 1G or the cable might not support 10G.

            If you set the port to 10G fixed you may need to set the other end to 10G fixed also and that may not be possible.

            Try running: sysctl dev.ix.0.advertise_speed to see what link rates it's trying to negotiate to.
            You might be able to restrict that to 10G only using: sysctl dev.ix.0.advertise_speed=4

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            • K
              kilasin @stephenw10
              last edited by

              @stephenw10 said in Trouble with WAN not being able to get correct speed:

              sysctl dev.ix.0.advertise_speed=4

              Ok this what I am getting when using the command sysctl dev.ix.0.advertise_speed: dev.ix.0.advertise_speed: 7

              and this is what i got when using this command sysctl dev.ix.0.advertise_speed=4 : dev.ix.0.advertise_speed: 7 -> 4 (It disconnected my connection) So i just changed it back to 7 and i got connection back.

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              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                Ok, so it fails to link when it can only negotiate 10G. Check/replace the cable. Try linking to something else if you can.

                [23.09.1-RELEASE][admin@6100.stevew.lan]/root: sysctl -d dev.ix.0.advertise_speed
                dev.ix.0.advertise_speed: 
                Control advertised link speed using these flags:
                	0x1 - advertise 100M
                	0x2 - advertise 1G
                	0x4 - advertise 10G
                	0x8 - advertise 10M
                
                	0x10  - advertise 2.5G
                	0x20  - advertise 5G
                
                	100M and 10M are only supported on certain adapters.
                

                advertise_speed=7 implies 10G, 1G and 100M.

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                • K
                  kilasin @stephenw10
                  last edited by kilasin

                  @stephenw10 said in Trouble with WAN not being able to get correct speed:

                  sysctl -d dev.ix.0.advertise_speed

                  Ok so I tried 10 and 20 and none worked unfortunately. I did see something curious though when the cable gets connected to my switch i see this :
                  fbd19bf4-d360-4446-a713-e7da3966afe7-image.png

                  The LAN from the WAN nic card is connected at 10G to my switch and my computer is only at 2.5G which should be 10G but that might just be a cable issue. Sorry for digressing.

                  Back to the WAN its weird i tried
                  0x1 - advertise 100M (works)
                  0x2 - advertise 1G (works)
                  0x4 - advertise 10G(not working)
                  0x8 - advertise 10M(invalid arguement)

                  x10(invalid arguement)
                  x20(invalid arguement)

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                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    That NIC likely doesn't support 2.5G or 5G so you can't set those advertise speeds.

                    I assume that switch is on the LAN side?

                    The WAN is connected to the ISP/ONT directly?

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                    • K
                      kilasin @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      @stephenw10 Correct on both questions .

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                      • K
                        kilasin @stephenw10
                        last edited by

                        @stephenw10 I do have another 10G card that i can physically put in the machine but then that only leaves me with a 2.5G nic however I want my speeds lol i have another 2.5G card installed in the server but that is an rtl and pfsense does not like rtl cards as i tried implementing it into pfsense to no avail

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                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          Does the ISP/ONT device support 2.5G?

                          A Realtek 2.5G NIC in pfSense requires the realtek-kmod driver package.

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                          • K
                            kilasin @stephenw10
                            last edited by

                            @stephenw10
                            the ISP/ONT supports it as their router gets those speeds. I tested their speed test and im getting exactly what I pay for but only in Wifi not Ethernet cuz of the port which makes no sense to me but that is how it is.

                            I see il try to install that package and try to use that nic as my WAN ..But I think i will bite the bullet and buy another 2.5G card that is compatible with pfsense

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                            • stephenw10S
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by

                              Ah, their router links to the ONT at 2.5G?

                              Are you sure the ONT actually supports 10G links then? That would explain why the 10G NIC only links at 1G.

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                              • K
                                kilasin @stephenw10
                                last edited by

                                @stephenw10

                                I am pretty sure but I cannot be 100% as all I have is their router. So their router is messed up because their ports only do 1G but in WiFi i get 2G so I am guessing the 2.5G. I just installed the rltk package and try that nic as the WAN but seperating that nic from UnRaid is a pain and installing trying to make it work with pfsense was imposssible. I will try that. I have another option which is taking my 10G card that i have in my PC and installing it into the pfSense since i know this nic can pull 2.5G, which I have done before.

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                                • K
                                  kilasin @stephenw10
                                  last edited by

                                  @stephenw10

                                  By the way is there a way i can check if the ONT can handle 2.5G connections?

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                                  • stephenw10S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    What is their router, what model? I imagine the hardware will be documented somewhere.

                                    You will need to add the loader values to load the Realtek module at boot if you have not already:

                                    echo 'if_re_load="YES"' >> /boot/loader.conf.local
                                    echo 'if_re_name="/boot/modules/if_re.ko"' >> /boot/loader.conf.local
                                    
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                                    • K
                                      kilasin @stephenw10
                                      last edited by

                                      @stephenw10

                                      Ya i dont that actually .. do i have to put echo ? I just added the lines to the config file like so:

                                      kern.cam.boot_delay=10000
                                      kern.geom.label.disk_ident.enable="0"
                                      kern.geom.label.gptid.enable="0"
                                      kern.ipc.nmbclusters="1000000"
                                      kern.ipc.nmbjumbo9="524288"
                                      kern.ipc.nmbjumbop="524288"
                                      opensolaris_load="YES"
                                      zfs_load="YES"
                                      opensolaris_load="YES"
                                      zfs_load="YES"
                                      kern.cam.boot_delay=10000
                                      kern.geom.label.disk_ident.enable="0"
                                      kern.geom.label.gptid.enable="0"
                                      kern.ipc.nmbclusters="1000000"
                                      kern.ipc.nmbjumbo9="524288"
                                      kern.ipc.nmbjumbop="524288"
                                      if_re_load="YES"
                                      if_re_name="/boot/modules/if_re.ko"
                                      boot_serial="NO"
                                      autoboot_delay="3"
                                      hw.hn.vf_transparent="0"
                                      hw.hn.use_if_start="1"
                                      net.link.ifqmaxlen="128"
                                      machdep.hwpstate_pkg_ctrl="1"
                                      net.pf.states_hashsize="524288"

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                                      • K
                                        kilasin @stephenw10
                                        last edited by

                                        @stephenw10

                                        and yes their WAN is 2.5G i just confirmed as shown here

                                        6c9b9818-d36d-4005-8871-3768287c987a-image.png

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                                        • stephenw10S
                                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                          last edited by

                                          Aha, so it's 2.5G and specifically not 10G. I think there's a good chance the ONT is 2.5G and that's why you can't link to it at 10G but it negotiates back to 1G.

                                          AFAIK only the Intel X550 based NICs can link at 2.5G and 5G as well as 10G.

                                          You should put those loader values in /boot/loader.conf.local otherwise they will be overwritten. Create that file.
                                          The echo command there is just for running at the CLI to append those lines into the file. You don't need them if you manually edit it.

                                          Steve

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                                          • K
                                            kilasin @stephenw10
                                            last edited by

                                            @stephenw10

                                            Hey Steve I want to thank you a million mate that was amazing help i got from you.

                                            Do you know if this would work Aquantia Corp. AQC107 NBase-T/IEEE ? I need to install the drivers but technically it can link up 2.5 and 5G

                                            Best Regards
                                            Art

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