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    PfSense on a Riverbed Steelhead

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Hardware
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    • O
      Okijames
      last edited by

      FWIWI tried compiling the Silicom drivers on a FreeBSD 10.3 (to match pfSense 2.3.5) and turns out the bpmod.ko kernel module (note this is pre-built, NOT actually available as source code in the driver package) won't work, it complains about not finding a Silicom card, as expected I guess...

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      • stephenw10S
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
        last edited by

        With those smb modules loaded try running: smbmsg -p

        That should return all the available smbus devices available. But it also might hang the bus or even the whole box so be ready to power cycle it. It will probably list some things though. Hopefully including 0x24.

        The smbus python tools appear to be more like raw i2c tools. The actual output command in rbmode appears to write to a device at 0x24 with subaddress (or smbus command) 0x55 and whatever the output of that checksum function is. My python sucks! 😉

        Steve

        You can probably do that easily enough with smbmsg.

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        • O
          Okijames
          last edited by

          root@:~ # kldload ichsmb
          ichsmb0: <Intel 631xESB/6321ESB (ESB2) SMBus controller> port 0x540-0x55f irq 19 at device 31.3 on pci0
          smbus0: <System Management Bus> on ichsmb0
          root@:~ # kldload smb
          smb0: <SMBus generic I/O> on smbus0
          root@:~ # smbmsg -p
          Probing for devices on /dev/smb0:
          Device @0x10: w
          Device @0x48: rw
          Device @0x5c: rw
          Device @0x60: rw
          Device @0x64: rw
          Device @0x66: rw
          ichsmb0: device timeout, status=0x41
          ichsmb0: device timeout, status=0x41
          ichsmb0: device timeout, status=0x41
          ichsmb0: device timeout, status=0x41

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          • O
            Okijames
            last edited by

            That's what I get, and then the "device timeout" messages continue forever. Rerunning smbmsg -p shows nothing but the timeout messages, so pretty much need to reboot after running once. No x24 addresses of course! curses...

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            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              Hmm. Have you also seen that script work in Linux?

              I could imagine the device might come up at a different address in FreeBSD perhaps...

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              • O
                Okijames @pauloalb
                last edited by

                @pauloalb Since you got the script to work under Linux...

                What were the values for "calcCheckSums" in this bit of the script?

                s.write_block_data(0x24, 0x55, calcChecksums(cmd_0))
time.sleep(0.1)
s.write_block_data(0x24, 0x55, calcChecksums(cmd_1))

                This would give us clues as to what we should give smbmsg to send the same values under BSD. Changing the 0x24 address location per what we see from using "smbmsg -p" .

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                • O
                  Okijames @Okijames
                  last edited by

                  Per some docs...

                  write_block_data(i2c_addr, register, data, force=None)
                  Write a block of byte data to a given register.
                  Parameters
                  • i2c_addr (int) – i2c address
                  • register (int) – Start register
                  • data (list) – List of bytes
                  • force (Boolean) –

                  So I'm thinking the smbmsg equivalent could be something like this per my smbus scan...

                  smbmsg -s 0x48 -c 0x55 -o 3 0x?? 0x?? 0x??

                  With the ?? pieces being the values the rbmod script calculates in the above bit of python.

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                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by stephenw10

                    With some extra print calls and no actual smbus writes:

                    steve@steve-MMLP7AP-00 ~/Documents $ sudo ./rbmode.py u
[sudo] password for steve:      
Setting mode to universal
[3, None]
[3, 1]
[3, 252, 1, 254, 102, 153]
[3, 0]
[3, 252, 0, 255, 102, 153]

                    So I expect the required smbmsg command to be something like:

                    smbmsg -s 0x24 -c 0x55 -o 6 0x03 0xfc 0x01 0xfe 0x66 0x99
smbmsg -s 0x24 -c 0x55 -o 6 0x03 0xfc 0x00 0xff 0x66 0x99

                    BUT I'm unsure how the checksum applies. i2c doesn't have a checksum but the script calculates the checksum from the data because smbus does. So if smbmsg does the checksum for us it might be:

                    smbmsg -s 0x24 -c 0x55 -o 2 0x03 0x01
smbmsg -s 0x24 -c 0x55 -o 2 0x03 0x00

                    That all depends on 0x24 being the real device address....

                    Steve

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                    • O
                      Okijames @stephenw10
                      last edited by

                      Considering this comment was in the rbmode script all along...

                      universal

                      port 0: 06-03-fc-01-fe-66-99 -> 0x03, 0x01

                      port 1: 06-03-fc-00-ff-66-99 -> 0x03, 0x00

                      Lines up precisely with your converted output and possible smbmsg commands...

                      smbmsg -s 0x24 -c 0x55 -o 6 0x03 0xfc 0x01 0xfe 0x66 0x99
                      smbmsg -s 0x24 -c 0x55 -o 6 0x03 0xfc 0x00 0xff 0x66 0x99

                      I guess the info was staring us in the face this whole time :)

                      Now will it work? smbmsg syntax is cryptic, but will give it a go.

                      Thanks!

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                      • O
                        Okijames @Okijames
                        last edited by

                        Huge thanks to Steve, his print output of rbmode filled in the final pieces!

                        First a bit of a caveat: I did this with FreeBSD 12.1. I used a full install of a current FreeBSD version to improve chances of stuff working, have access to extra tools, drivers, etc. that are not in pfSense, let alone and old version of pfSense.

                        One thing to note BTW is 12.1 installed from a USB key inserted in the front panel directly to an internal SATA without issue. FreeBSD 10.3 and pfSense 2.3.5 based on same were unable to install directly to an internal SATA.

                        So anyway...

                        Success! Instant relay click and nic link lights with the first smbmsg command below! LAN0_0 (em0) and WAN0_0 (em1) both working!

                        Note they nics did require an "ifconfig emX up" before they could be used but that's to be expected.

                        smbmsg -s 0x48 -c 0x55 -o 6 0x03 0xfc 0x01 0xfe 0x66 0x99
                        smbmsg -s 0x48 -c 0x55 -o 6 0x03 0xfc 0x00 0xff 0x66 0x99

                        The second command doesn't seem to do anything but does not return an error. I rebooted, which does reset the relays, and tried the second command alone, still doesn't seem to do anything, good or bad.

                        So next steps would entail getting the following on pfSense, if it's not already there...

                        -ichsmb.ko
                        -smb.ko
                        -smbmsg

                        Then alter boot-up config to load the kernel modules and issue the smbmsg commands automatically.

                        I won't be doing any of the pfSense bits cause I don't actually want to run a 32bit box. It just always bugged me that half the nics wouldn't work without the original software.

                        Anybody want to buy one? :)

                        I think I have 2 250s and 2 550s. The 550s for sure (because that's been my box for all this hackery) have a Xeon Sossaman and 4GB ECC RAM. IIRC the 250s have a Celeron and 2GB ECC RAM. No USB DOMs, no HDDs, no software.

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                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          The modules are there in pfSense, just not loaded. To run that you would need to add to /boot/loader.conf.local:

                          ichsmb_load=yes
smb_load=yes

                          Then run that smbmsg with a shellcmd at boot. Pretty easy.
                          Of course not if that is 32bit hardware though. 😉

                          I assume the second line is for larger models that have two pairs of ports.

                          The fact that code was already in the comments there was confusing. The way it's written looked like they got the i2c output from original OS maybe. The extracted the actual commands from it. But then recreate the same string by calculating the checksum... odd.

                          Steve

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                          • P
                            pauloalb @stephenw10
                            last edited by

                            Special thanks to @stephenw10 and @okijames and everyone that helped.

                            I am on my lunch break so i couldn't test this much but i call this a SUCCESS! Both nics do light up and show activity.

                            I am running this on a Rivebed Steelhead 250 with pfSense 2.3.5 running from a flash drive plugged in the front of the device with no hdd and no subonModule internal flash plugged in.

                            The exact sequence that worked for me, gathering all the bits from previous messages is this:

                            kldload ichsmb
                            kldload smb
                            ifconfig em0 up
                            ifconfig em1 up
                            smbmsg -s 0x48 -c 0x55 -o 6 0x03 0xfc 0x01 0xfe 0x66 0x99
                            smbmsg -s 0x48 -c 0x55 -o 6 0x03 0xfc 0x00 0xff 0x66 0x99

                            Thanks again for the fantastic comunity support and engagement from everyone 👍 😁

                            pauloalb

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

                              Nice!

                              Interesting that it's apparently at a different address in FreeBSD/pfSense.

                              I wouldn't expect you to have to ifconfig up the interface assuming it is assigned and enabled. Usually in that sort of setup the relays disconnect the physical ports but the OS can always see the NIC chip.

                              Steve

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                              • O
                                Okijames @stephenw10
                                last edited by

                                @stephenw10

                                Yeah, different drivers so different reference address I guess.

                                You're right re "ifconfig up" requirement, under pfSense anyway. Going through the nic assignment process and ticking the "Enabled" box gets them up and running.

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                                • O
                                  Okijames @Okijames
                                  last edited by Okijames

                                  Ok I wrote a full soup-to-nuts howto on this whole thing but it keeps getting flagged as spam and won't post. Any pointers?

                                  The issue seems to be the text related to shellcmd entries in the pfSense config file. I literally dare not include it here or this post would be blocked. :(

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                                  • stephenw10S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    Try again. I upvoted your posts so you have the required rep level, 5, that should avoid the filter.

                                    It looks like you wrote this and then deleted it a number of times. I could try to recover those?

                                    Steve

                                    O 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • O
                                      Okijames @stephenw10
                                      last edited by

                                      @stephenw10 Thanks for the upvote and please delete those other posts. I'll try posting the whole thing right now...

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                                      • O
                                        Okijames @stephenw10
                                        last edited by

                                        @stephenw10 No joy, still getting flagged as spam.

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

                                          Hmm, maybe a combination of the IP you're coming from? Maybe remove any links you have in the post?

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                                          • O
                                            Okijames @stephenw10
                                            last edited by

                                            @stephenw10 There are not links :) . Just this piece seems to be the problem.

                                            	<shellcmd>smbmsg -s 0x48 -c 0x55 -o 6 0x03 0xfc 0x01 0xfe 0x66 0x99</shellcmd>
</system>
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