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    Riverbed Steelhead EXA-00560-B010

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Hardware
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    • stephenw10S
      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
      last edited by

      There are usually either jumpers or some controls in the BIOS. I assume the original bios didn't have anything?

      If the bypass relays are on the NIC and there are no jumpers you will probably need the appropriate drivers to switch them. Or some hardware mod. 😕

      Steve

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      • L
        likelinus
        last edited by likelinus

        Thanks for the reply. On the top of the card, there are no jumpers that I could find. I need to completely pull the card to view the bottom. I've just been ultra busy and haven't had time.

        I tried to talk to Riverbed to see if they had a utility or drivers, but they want me to sign up for a very expensive maintenance plan. They wouldn't even answer any questions, period. Not even tell me if there were updated drivers or anything. I called up Dell to ask about the unit (the warranty expired 2 years ago in 2016) and they were more than happy to help! Eventually I got the model number of cards that were supported by the unit. I should have a 4 port Intel Pro PCIe card when I get home.

        And No, the stock BIOS didn't have anything related to the PCIe card. It only had config options for the two onboard Broadcast (motherboard) ports.

        Either way, everything else functions just fine and the Intel card should solve the problem. I paid $100 for the unit with 16GB Ram, Xeon 1220 CPU, 80GB Intel SSD, 1TB 7200 Hitachi SATA and it's like brand new with rail kit. So I'm not complaining too much.

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        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          Mmm, probably would require special drivers then. It wouldn't suprise me if that was a Silicom card. They made a number of cards with by-pass function though I'm not sure they ever used Broadcom. Most were Intel based.
          Probably some clue on the card itself.

          Replacing it is the easier path and guaranteed to get you more ports.

          Steve

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          • L
            likelinus
            last edited by

            I can't find any identifying marks that let me know if it's intel or Broadcom. I think I only thought it was Broadcom from another thread about this unit, but maybe I'm wrong? I did pull the card and there are jumpers on the unit at all. So you're probably right, it's driver related and Riverbed is of absolutely no help. I'll look into the Silicom (not familiar with the company) card to see if they have drivers, just for giggles. But the Intel card is here and I know it'll work as intended.

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            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              You could probably find out from pciconf -lv if the card is not seen by any existing driver. Or by the driver name if it is.

              Failing that does the NIC not have any identifying numbers?

              There were at one time Silicom drivers available. You had to compile them IIRC so it had to be against the correct FreeBSD version etc.

              Steve

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              • A
                AndyC
                last edited by

                According to the documentation, the EX560 doesn't support "data interface" mode for the bypass cards. I wouldn't waste any time on trying to get that to work.

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                • stephenw10S
                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                  last edited by

                  Hmm, not sure where you're seeing that. Seems very unlikely that any card would not be capable if data use. Though I'm not really sure what 'data interface mode' implies.

                  According that doc the only NIC compatible with the EX560 is the 410-00044-01/ NIC-002-4TX.

                  An image search for that shows this:
                  https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/qxwAAOSwmfhX4xKC/s-l1600.jpg

                  One of the labels on that has this part number, PE2G4BPI80, which is a Silicom card.

                  It's Intel based but requires their driver.

                  Steve

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                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    Drivers are available and they are not too old either. However only for the bypass part of the card. The release notes show that standard Intel driver should recognise that card.

                    Are you seeing interfaces in pfSense but just unable to connect to them?

                    Steve

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                    • L
                      likelinus
                      last edited by

                      410-00044-01 is the part number on the card. You are correct about that, it looks just like what you posted. But it's a Riverbed P/N and I couldn't find out much about it and Riverbed stonewalled me. There is a way to get it to Data/Normal interface mode, I've seen documentation. The issue is that it involves getting into the CIL to do this. First thing I did when I got the unit was blow away the Riverbed OS drive and install the Dell BIOS. It never dawned on me that the cards could/would be configured to function as something other than just normal ethernet ports. I installed pfsense and it only detects the two onboard ports, but nothing from the card.

                      So maybe I'll try to install Silicom drivers and see what happens. Is that the drivers you mentioned that aren't too old? Did you find them on the Silicom site, or somewhere else?

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                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by stephenw10

                        On the Silicom site, yes. See: https://forum.netgate.com/topic/72769/silcom-peg4i-82571eb-based

                        Do you not see the PEG part number on a label?

                        But as I said they list only a driver for the bypass relays not NICs and those should always be connected.

                        What does the output of pciconf -lv at the command line show?

                        Steve

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