Agere ET-131x Gigabit Ethernet Chipset

Matchstick

Hi,

I'm looking at replacing my aged WRAP board with a new FX5621 boxe (the upgraded version of the FX5620).
http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=11714
However it appear that the box uses the Agere ET-131x chipset for it's 2 Gigabit ports which doesn't seem to be working in pfSense.
http://www.fabiatech.com/_data/datasheet/56.pdf

Does anyone know anything about BSD support for the chipset and whether pfSense may include it in the near(ish) future ?

Thanks

Garf

I have bought this item to the company im working at. Would be nice if the gigabit ports will work in the future. None FreBSD driver avaible to this chip?

Cry Havok

A quick look shows no support in FreeBSD 6.x for that chipset and no indicators that it's being worked upon either.

You can always grab the FreeBSD 7.0 live CD and see if the cards are detected.

Garf

I shall chek tomorrow when I have access to any USB cd-rom.

Is there any plans on upgrading pfsense to freebsd 7 in the nearest future?

hoba

freebsd7 is not yet released/stable though we already are working on freebsd7 based versions. once freebsd7 will be available we'll move new pfsense versions to it as well.

Garf

Nice, this software is awsome :)

Is there any info on how much work they have left on ver. 7 until its stable? Didnt find any information about that?

hoba

That's rather something that you have to ask at the freebsd lists or investigate at their site.

Cry Havok

@Garf:

Nice, this software is awsome :)

Is there any info on how much work they have left on ver. 7 until its stable? Didnt find any information about that?

A general guide for FreeBSD release schedules can always be found at:

http://www.freebsd.org/releng/index.html

That suggests that 7.0 may go live this week, but history suggests that it will be late - digging through some of the links from there shows that a couple of kernel panic situations have been found, depending on the impact of those it may push the release back. Given that RC3 (Release Candidate 3) only hit the mirrors 5 days ago also suggests that final release may be delayed.

MindTwist

This is about the only thread I have seen on this forum talking about the FX5621, does anyone have this unit and knows if the 2 gigabit ports can be used?

I wanted to buy a FX5620 unit, and it seems I made my mind a bit too late, the FX5620 unit is no longer being produced, and now we have the FX5621 replacing it. It seems to be about the same, but with 2 gigabit ports instead of one, but since they can not be used with pfSense which is what I wanted it for, for me it is like having one port less, and not one more.

I was told by linitx.com that they "have donated an FX5621 system to the pfSense team and hopefully they will be able to support the Gigabit NIC's on the new system soon", does anyone have any news on the subject?

Thanks!

wallabybob

The FreeBSD repository shows the et driver for the Agere ET1310 was checked in 20-Jun-2008. I don't know if its built into the pfSense 1.2.1 snapshot builds.

Cry Havok

According to the LinITX product page it is supported in the recent snapshots.

Which is good, as my FX5620 seems to have just failed (the NIC lights are on, but no beeps or BIOS screen) so I'm about to have to buy a replacement. If I can buy a compatible model then I won't have to do any major reconfiguration of pfSense when I move the Microdrive over.