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    Intel X553 NICs (on C3758 SoC) not detected by pfSense 2.4/2.4.1

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    • G
      gdelong
      last edited by

      Having same issue so I am following

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • E
        EditioN
        last edited by

        Same issue same board.
        I thought the driver was added to FreeBSD in March.
        Tried to install FreeBSD separately to double check but not included as well.

        Seems to work in debian/ubuntu with the latest drivers from intel https://www.servethehome.com/day-0-with-intel-atom-c3000-getting-nics-working/

        Intel's latest driver includes X553 in their list of compatible devices.
        https://downloadmirror.intel.com/14688/eng/readme.txt

        Probably relevant as well:
        https://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-stable/2017-July/087388.html

        –---

        Another thread on the same topic:
        https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=137182.0

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        • G
          gdelong
          last edited by

          I also found this

          [–]gonzopanchoNetgate 3 points 2 months ago
          They don't work yet, but I canceled a family vacation (they went without me) to work on C3000.
          permalinkembedreport
          [–]4GettableOne 3 points 2 months ago
          That's hardcore thnx! Someone get this guy some gold and a beer.
          permalinkparentreport
          [–]pixel_of_moral_decay 1 point 2 months ago
          I think /u/gonzopancho is shitting out gold at this point ;)
          permalinkparentreport
          [–]SuddenWeatherReportCCNP R&S 3 points 2 months ago
          Dude you should have just went
          permalinkparentreport
          [–]ericmotordu 1 point 1 month ago
          /u/gonzopancho, can you indicate which part does not work? Thank you, Eric

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • ?
            Guest
            last edited by

            I have a Supermicro 5019A-FTN4 server, which has a A2SDi-8C-HLN4F mainboard with a C3758 SoC. It has 4 GbE ports which are powered by Intel X553 NICs.

            Both the X553 (1 GBit/s) and X557 (10 GbE) ports are still not working yet due to the lag of support for the entire
            C3000 SoC, this ports are integrated in the SoC. If you draw in an Intel i340-T4, or i350-T4 or Intel Pro 1000 PT
            adapter it should run out of the box because these adapters are fully supported.

            I was originally planning to run it as a VM in Proxmox VE but I'm having some issues with throughput in that setup, so I'm trying to narrow down the cause of that issue, which has brought me to attempting to install pfSense bare metal. However, when installing pfSense (I've tried both 2.4 and 2.4.1) on the server, no interfaces are detected.

            Link 1 OpenSSL benchmark
            Link 2 Intel Atom C3958 16-Core Top End Embedded QAT Linux Benchmarks and Review

            From everything I can see, the new FreeBSD 11.0 base in pfSense 2.4+ should support the X553 NICs out of the box. Is that not correct?

            Now we are on FreeBSD 11.1 and there were much things that was fast changing between the version 2.4.0 and
            version 2.4.1 and there fore I personally think this will be not all worked out, and there will be perhaps the primary view
            on at this time as I see it right, and it rumors too that Netgate the company behind pfSense will be launch their own
            C3000 based hardware and due to that date they perhaps are actually working on it and they are not fully finished up
            all things according to that platform.

            I've been attempting to load the drivers into pfSense manually, but I'm not very proficient in FreeBSD so while I could probably succeed at some point, it would take a long time, and given that FreeBSD 11.0 should support the X553 anyways, I'm not even sure that this would fix the issue.

            Fairly said if this will be only an Intel NIC chip that is soldered alone on the board I would say try it out, but while this
            NICs or LAN ports are integrated into that C3000 SoC I will say try it out but on your own risk.

            Does anyone have any tips or suggestions?

            if you are willing to try it out really, install a fresh and fulla FreeBSD 11.1 OS on that system and see what
            is going on then! And then you might be able to get the driver out from there and put it on the pfSense 2.4.1
            system you must install again on that platform (hardware) then you can see what happens really, all other things
            are pure guess work until one of us were just doing and report it!

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            • E
              EditioN
              last edited by

              The driver exists, was just not added in PFSense.
              Working fine in FreeNAS beta, just need to find out how to export the driver…

              https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/26292

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • E
                EditioN
                last edited by

                Ok, so I finally got it to work but still need to find some better way to do it, limited freebsd knowledge over here.

                I installed freebsd 11.1 RELEASE, same as pfsense 2.4.1, which doesn't have the updated driver (STABLE already includes it).
                Downloaded the 10Gb freebsd driver from intel website:
                https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/14688/Intel-Network-Adapters-Driver-for-PCIe-10-Gigabit-Network-Connections-Under-FreeBSD-

                Compiled the driver and saved to an usb stick.

                Then installed pfsense 2.4.1, copied the driver to /boot/modules/ but got an error trying to load it

                module_register: cannot register pci/ix from if_ix_updated.ko; already loaded from if_ix.ko
                

                Then I ran

                kldunload /boot/kernel/if_ix.ko
                

                Followed by the load command again

                kldload -v /boot/modules/if_ix_updated.ko
                

                I know this is far from ideal but how can I make this work in boot?

                Do I need to compile a new kernel with the driver built in or is there a way to "tell" the kernel to load this module instead?
                I guess replacing it in /boot/kernel/ folder is not a good idea?

                Thanks.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • ?
                  Guest
                  last edited by

                  I know this is far from ideal but how can I make this work in boot?

                  Try out to run a script that is unloading and loading this for you after booting.

                  Do I need to compile a new kernel with the driver built in or is there a way to "tell" the kernel to load this module instead?

                  This would be not so easy as you could think about.
                  /boot/modules is the right position here.

                  At least only to be sure, now the NIC is running fine and able to use for you?
                  A small thread about that and worth the time to read it too

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • M
                    Mullet Scandinavia AB
                    last edited by

                    Turn off VT-d support in the A2SDI BIOS and pfSense will find all  the NIC:s

                    Supermicro reseller in Sweden
                    FreeBSD user since 2.1.5

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                    • E
                      EditioN
                      last edited by

                      Well, that would be interesting but not working here…
                      Can you be more specific regarding the options to disable?

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • ?
                        Guest
                        last edited by

                        Can you be more specific regarding the options to disable?

                        @Mullet Scandinavia AB said:

                        Turn off VT-d support in the A2SDI BIOS and pfSense will find all  the NIC:s

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • E
                          EditioN
                          last edited by

                          wow, thanks…
                          But of course I did that already and even reinstalled pfsense.
                          NICs are not there, the only way I can make it work is with the newer driver...

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                          • M
                            Mullet Scandinavia AB
                            last edited by

                            This is weird. I had it up an running this morning with VT-d off but now it don't work again!

                            And there are so few tools in the pfsense image so it's hard to debug no lspci and no network to fetch it either…

                            Have tried new beta BIOS und updated LAN EEPROM but still not working. Strange that it works sometimes.

                            Supermicro reseller in Sweden
                            FreeBSD user since 2.1.5

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                            • M
                              MarvinFS
                              last edited by

                              Guys any news on X553 driver?
                              It's still not working on 2.4.2_1 and it'a January already.
                              I've bought 6 pcs SYS-E200-9A with A2SDi-4C-HLN4F boards.
                              It's perfect all in all even Windows 2016 server works perfectly there, but not pfsense.
                              Any updates of manually putting FreeBSD drivers in there?
                              disabling virtualization or VT-d in BIOS does nothing for pfsense and NIC detection.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • stephenw10S
                                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                last edited by

                                The drivers were not in 11.1 release which is what we build on so until they are included in our base we may not get them.

                                You can build the kernel module yourself as explained by EditioN above. To load it at boot time just create the file /boot/loader.conf.local and then put in that file:

                                if_ix_load="YES"
                                

                                Steve

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                                • M
                                  MarvinFS
                                  last edited by

                                  Thanks for the answer ,

                                  Will it survive the updates then? I mean how frequent PFsense updates modules in /boot? or it's more like image updates for the whole partition?
                                  So for now we may use that solution, but if will need to put it manually to /boot on every update i'm not sure it's usable as those will be in remote offices with hardly proper IT personnel avail.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • stephenw10S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    The imported kernel module will be specific to that version. It probably won't work in 11.2 for example. We won't have tested anything against it so there's no guarantees that any pfSense update won't break it.

                                    Really you should wait for support to be included in the release. Certainly before deploying it in any critical application in my opinion.

                                    Steve

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • M
                                      MarvinFS
                                      last edited by

                                      Managed to get it working somehow.
                                      Anyhow, we have bought those appliances already for all the offices, sadly before checking if it's supported yet! :)
                                      I failed to find a proper way to disable existing module, so i just rename it and load a module manually compiled from Intel sources.
                                      After that don't forget to fix permissions chmod 555 /boot/kernel/if_ix.ko and u'r good to go. (reboot)

                                      So yeah, it works just fine after that, but don't survive upgrades as far as i understand pfsense updates kernel also, along with modules apparently.

                                      Instructions:

                                      on 1st boot after install press any key on PFsense logo

                                      boot in Single User mode
                                      press enter for /bin/sh shell

                                      #connect your USB stick (Fat32 formatted) with driver
                                      #check what's it's name
                                      ls /dev/da*
                                      #mount usb
                                      mount_msdosfs /dev/da0s1 /media
                                      #unload existing if_ix module - check it's ID if necessary /sbin/kldstat )
                                      /sbin/kldunload -i 2
                                      #mount root as RW
                                      mount -rw /
                                      #rename existing if_ix.ko module
                                      mv /boot/kernel/if_ix.ko /boot/kernel/if_ix.ko.blacklisted
                                      #copy new module from USB
                                      cp /media/if_ix.ko /boot/modules/
                                      #fix permissions
                                      chmod 555 /boot/modules/if_ix.ko
                                      #make loader.conf.local
                                      echo 'if_ix_load="YES"' >> /boot/loader.conf.local
                                      #enjoy
                                      reboot

                                      In case somebody needs it - here's yandex.cloud direct link (compiled for FreeBSD 11.1 release) https://yadi.sk/d/F92wgHSy3RNDS9

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • D
                                        daddygrant
                                        last edited by

                                        You sir, have saved my bacon.  Your instructions and file has worked perfectly for me.

                                        Cheers.

                                        @MarvinFS:

                                        Managed to get it working somehow.
                                        Anyhow, we have bought those appliances already for all the offices, sadly before checking if it's supported yet! :)
                                        I failed to find a proper way to disable existing module, so i just rename it and load a module manually compiled from Intel sources.
                                        After that don't forget to fix permissions chmod 555 /boot/kernel/if_ix.ko and u'r good to go. (reboot)

                                        So yeah, it works just fine after that, but don't survive upgrades as far as i understand pfsense updates kernel also, along with modules apparently.

                                        Instructions:

                                        on 1st boot after install press any key on PFsense logo

                                        boot in Single User mode
                                        press enter for /bin/sh shell

                                        #connect your USB stick (Fat32 formatted) with driver
                                        #check what's it's name
                                        ls /dev/da*
                                        #mount usb
                                        mount_msdosfs /dev/da0s1 /media
                                        #unload existing if_ix module - check it's ID if necessary /sbin/kldstat )
                                        /sbin/kldunload -i 2
                                        #mount root as RW
                                        mount -rw /
                                        #rename existing if_ix.ko module
                                        mv /boot/kernel/if_ix.ko /boot/kernel/if_ix.ko.blacklisted
                                        #copy new module from USB
                                        cp /media/if_ix.ko /boot/modules/
                                        #fix permissions
                                        chmod 555 /boot/modules/if_ix.ko
                                        #make loader.conf.local
                                        echo 'if_ix_load="YES"' >> /boot/loader.conf.local
                                        #enjoy
                                        reboot

                                        In case somebody needs it - here's yandex.cloud direct link (compiled for FreeBSD 11.1 release) https://yadi.sk/d/F92wgHSy3RNDS9

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • M
                                          MarvinFS
                                          last edited by

                                          @daddygrant:

                                          You sir, have saved my bacon.  Your instructions and file has worked perfectly for me.

                                          Cheers.

                                          Glad it worked and happy to help! Guess we'd wait for official support now and upgrade afterwards…

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • A
                                            andrewjoy
                                            last edited by

                                            @MarvinFS:

                                            Managed to get it working somehow.
                                            Anyhow, we have bought those appliances already for all the offices, sadly before checking if it's supported yet! :)
                                            I failed to find a proper way to disable existing module, so i just rename it and load a module manually compiled from Intel sources.
                                            After that don't forget to fix permissions chmod 555 /boot/kernel/if_ix.ko and u'r good to go. (reboot)

                                            So yeah, it works just fine after that, but don't survive upgrades as far as i understand pfsense updates kernel also, along with modules apparently.

                                            Instructions:

                                            on 1st boot after install press any key on PFsense logo

                                            boot in Single User mode
                                            press enter for /bin/sh shell

                                            #connect your USB stick (Fat32 formatted) with driver
                                            #check what's it's name
                                            ls /dev/da*
                                            #mount usb
                                            mount_msdosfs /dev/da0s1 /media
                                            #unload existing if_ix module - check it's ID if necessary /sbin/kldstat )
                                            /sbin/kldunload -i 2
                                            #mount root as RW
                                            mount -rw /
                                            #rename existing if_ix.ko module
                                            mv /boot/kernel/if_ix.ko /boot/kernel/if_ix.ko.blacklisted
                                            #copy new module from USB
                                            cp /media/if_ix.ko /boot/modules/
                                            #fix permissions
                                            chmod 555 /boot/modules/if_ix.ko
                                            #make loader.conf.local
                                            echo 'if_ix_load="YES"' >> /boot/loader.conf.local
                                            #enjoy
                                            reboot

                                            In case somebody needs it - here's yandex.cloud direct link (compiled for FreeBSD 11.1 release) https://yadi.sk/d/F92wgHSy3RNDS9

                                            This is  very clear thanks !!!

                                            Do we know when this is going to be in the live and stable builds ? Its working for now but don't want to put it into production until its part of the default kernel.

                                            Hopefully its soon before the power supply in the old Dell R300 changes its mind about not being on fire :)

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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