ASIX AX88179 USB to GigE
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Not necessarily but the similarities between the BSDs means that once one has it the other usually get it shortly afterwards. It really depends who is maintaining the driver for each distro and what hardware they have available to them or whether someone is sponsoring the work.
Steve
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Just as an update (if anyone's interested), I went and got one of these at Fry's (after researching it to confirm it had one of the above listed chipsets), and it seems to be working well. I still haven't finished the full configuration of all my devices on this new network, but it shows up in usbconfig (as an x772a chipset), it shows up in the Interfaces section, complete with a mac address, and the DHCP server is now set to serve up IPs on it. I think that counts as a success. ;)
Unfortunately, at least according to usbconfig, it shows up as a lowly FULL speed (12Mbit) USB device. But I think I'll manage with that for now, as my traffic to/from that network will largely be SSH. As I get all my devices situated on it, I'll try some throughput tests to see what kind of bandwidth & reliability I get from it; not that I'm expecting a lot of either one, but just as a frame of reference for anyone interested.
I decided to keep my Rosewill USB 3 to Gigabit adapter. I figure some time down the road, this chipset (& USB 3.0, for that matter) will be supported by FreeBSD, and eventually trickle down to pfSense.
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At some point you will realize that this usb2ethernet thing is sh!t and will buy small manageable switch :)
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At some point you will realize that this usb2ethernet thing is sh!t and will buy small manageable switch :)
I have no delusions about this being a particularly good setup, but hopefully by the time the inherent problems are too visible, I will have gotten my business development far enough along that it will have outgrown my home ;) In the meantime, it is a "good enough" solution–the connection thus far has been solid, no drop offs, and it provides me a way to segregate my network just fine. Not too shabby for $12.
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https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/blob/master/sys/dev/usb/net/if_axge.c?source=cc
Might be a good chance that it is in the v10 release now.
Wed Nov 20 02:16:47 2013 1121 /* ASIX Electronics products */ 1122 product ASIX AX88172 0x1720 10/100 Ethernet 1123 product ASIX AX88178 0x1780 AX88178 1124 product ASIX AX88178A 0x178a AX88178A USB 2.0 10/100/1000 Ethernet 1125 product ASIX AX88179 0x1790 AX88179 USB 3.0 10/100/1000 Ethernet 1126 product ASIX AX88772 0x7720 AX88772 1127 product ASIX AX88772A 0x772a AX88772A USB 2.0 10/100 Ethernet 1128 product ASIX AX88772B 0x772b AX88772B USB 2.0 10/100 Ethernet 1129 product ASIX AX88772B_1 0x7e2b AX88772B USB 2.0 10/100 Ethernet -
I loaded up a FreeBSD 8.3 VM and attempted building this from the FreeBSD git. I haven't tested it no adapter on hand. Will try to buy one later today if I can find one else will have to wait till next week. Just a note it looks like this driver will be showing up in FreeBSD 10.1
i386 Untested - Use at your own risk
To install
cd /boot/modules fetch http://fs08n3.sendspace.com/dl/671abb5cf606ffcd0e4268438f52a664/52e3a3b15d8244b8/a7az2c/if_axge.ko kldload if_axge.koThen to check that its loaded
kldstat -
Sweet, so what version does that translate to for pfSense?
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FreeBSD 8.3 is the base for 2.1 and now 2.1.1.
Steve
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FreeBSD 8.3 is the base for 2.1 and now 2.1.1.
Steve
Actually, I was referring to FreeBSD 10. I realize we haven't even made the leap to FreeBSD 9 yet, so we may still be talking years away(?), I was just curious if there was an expectation as to what future pfsense version that might line up with?
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In the meantime, I will definitely try out the driver you posted, Bryan. And I'll report back the results of my testing.
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Ah sorry. 2.2 will be built on FreeBSD 10. Some very early pre-alpha builds have come out of the build servers so wer're hopefully not talking years. Not ready for public consumption yet though.
Steve
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Interesting, I would have thought that a leap from FreeBSD 8.3 to 10/10.1 would have warranted a major (not just a minor) version change on the pfsense side as well. But that gives me hope, since now I know I don't have to wait two full versions away, but just one!
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Interesting, I would have thought that a leap from FreeBSD 8.3 to 10/10.1 would have warranted a major (not just a minor) version change on the pfsense side as well. But that gives me hope, since now I know I don't have to wait two full versions away, but just one!
backporting drivers is fairly common. Note that the driver wont be in freebsd release until 10.1 not 10.
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I would have thought that a leap from FreeBSD 8.3 to 10/10.1 would have warranted a major (not just a minor) version change
Yes I see what you mean. However I would argue that the changes that went into 2.1 were much more extensive from a pfSense point of view than even though the base system only incremented from FreeBSD 8.1 to 8.3. The 2.2 release will not have many new features as I understand it, the devs are concentrating purely on bringing the base system up to FreeBSD 10 so from that point of view pfSense will not have changed dramatically. It's being built as 2.2 currently but who knows the devs might decide it warrants a major change and go straight to 3.0. Just have to wait and see. ;)
Steve
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backporting drivers is fairly common. Note that the driver wont be in freebsd release until 10.1 not 10.
Duly noted! But I would suppose that it's generally easier to backport within the same major version, as opposed to jumping between two major versions.
Yes I see what you mean. However I would argue that the changes that went into 2.1 were much more extensive from a pfSense point of view than even though the base system only incremented from FreeBSD 8.1 to 8.3. The 2.2 release will not have many new features as I understand it, the devs are concentrating purely on bringing the base system up to FreeBSD 10 so from that point of view pfSense will not have changed dramatically. It's being built as 2.2 currently but who knows the devs might decide it warrants a major change and go straight to 3.0. Just have to wait and see. ;)
Steve
Fair enough. It's a worthy cause, as I'm sure that if nothing else, there's a lot of security updates between 8.3 & 10. Perhaps we'll see a goodly amount of bug fixes as well.
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Hiya,
I attempted to load the axge module provided, but get an exec format error.
I'm using release 2.1 i386. Have I missed something?[2.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.localdomain]/boot/modules(38): ls -la
total 125
drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 Jan 28 19:09 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 root wheel 512 Sep 11 23:51 ..
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 103996 Sep 11 23:51 bwi_v3_ucode.ko
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 15890 Jan 28 19:08 if_axge.ko[2.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.localdomain]/boot/modules(39): usbconfig
ugen0.1: <uhci root="" hub="" intel="">at usbus0, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=FULL (12Mbps) pwr=SAVE
ugen1.1: <ehci root="" hub="" intel="">at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=SAVE
ugen1.2: <product 0x8000="" vendor="" 0x8087="">at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=SAVE
ugen1.3: <ax88179 asix="" elec.="" corp.="">at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=ON[2.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.localdomain]/boot/modules(40): kldload if_axge.ko
kldload: can't load if_axge.ko: Exec format errorCheers</ax88179></product></ehci></uhci>
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Hiya,
I attempted to load the axge module provided, but get an exec format error.
I'm using release 2.1 i386. Have I missed something?[2.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.localdomain]/boot/modules(38): ls -la
total 125
drwxr-xr-x 2 root wheel 512 Jan 28 19:09 .
drwxr-xr-x 7 root wheel 512 Sep 11 23:51 ..
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 103996 Sep 11 23:51 bwi_v3_ucode.ko
-r-xr-xr-x 1 root wheel 15890 Jan 28 19:08 if_axge.ko[2.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.localdomain]/boot/modules(39): usbconfig
ugen0.1: <uhci root="" hub="" intel="">at usbus0, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=FULL (12Mbps) pwr=SAVE
ugen1.1: <ehci root="" hub="" intel="">at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=SAVE
ugen1.2: <product 0x8000="" vendor="" 0x8087="">at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=SAVE
ugen1.3: <ax88179 asix="" elec.="" corp.="">at usbus1, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=HIGH (480Mbps) pwr=ON[2.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.localdomain]/boot/modules(40): kldload if_axge.ko
kldload: can't load if_axge.ko: Exec format errorCheers</ax88179></product></ehci></uhci>
Are you running amd64?
i386 Untested - Use at your own risk
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Turns out it was the download link. I manually downloaded and sftp'd the file from windows to the pfsense box and I was able to load the module.
However, as soon as I attempt to assign the interface to a role, the machine crashes with reference to the algx module.
Fatal trap 12: page fault while in kernel mode cpuid = 0; apic id = 00 fault virtual address = 0x8 fault code = supervisor read, page not present instruction pointer = 0x20:0xc5091e46 stack pointer = 0x28:0xd6775c94 frame pointer = 0x28:0xd6775ca0 code segment = base 0x0 limit 0xffffff, type 0x1b = DPL 0, pres 1, def 32 1, gran 1 processor eflags = interrupt enabled, resume, IOPL = 0 current process = 14 (axge0) trap number = 12 panic: page fault -
Turns out it was the download link. I manually downloaded and sftp'd the file from windows to the pfsense box and I was able to load the module.
However, as soon as I attempt to assign the interface to a role, the machine crashes with reference to the algx module.
Well that sucks. Can you get the exact error?
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Ok. Well I am redoing the environment I compiled that in. My new adapter will be here on friday.
Cable Matters SuperSpeed USB 3.0 to RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter
