Official Realtek Driver Binary 1.95 For 2.4.4 Release

fromage9747

@Zcool31 @bedpan Going onto two weeks now without another watchdog timeout. Pretty confident the issue is fixed. But dam, what a pesky issue! I was going to RMA the board. Good thing I didn't!

bedpan

@fromage9747
Thanks for the followup. Nice to know this is likely dealt with.. A few hours now and problem free.

Napsterbater

Just for confirmations is anybody upgraded to 2.4.5 with FreeBSD 11.3?

Any issues or should it be good to go?

Turfrider

@Napsterbater Did you take the leap and try 2.4.5 with this driver?

TheNarc

Full disclosure: I have not yet tested this and do not know if it is necessary, but I did recompile the v1.95 Realtek driver under FreeBSD 11.3. I'm planning to test it on my pfSense machines within the next day or two and will report back.
if_re_ko_v195_FREEBSD-11.3_64bit.zip

TheNarc

Installed the driver I attached to my previous post w. 2.4.5 and all is well so far . . . will report back if anything goes sideways.

Napsterbater

@TheNarc said in Official Realtek Driver Binary 1.95 For 2.4.4 Release:

Full disclosure: I have not yet tested this and do not know if it is necessary, but I did recompile the v1.95 Realtek driver under FreeBSD 11.3. I'm planning to test it on my pfSense machines within the next day or two and will report back.
if_re_ko_v195_FREEBSD-11.3_64bit.zip

Install this updated driver on one box and then updated to 2.4.5, its booted and running. So far so good.

Napsterbater

@Derelict said in Official Realtek Driver Binary 1.95 For 2.4.4 Release:

/boot/loader.conf.local

Also note after upgrade run "kldstat" to confirm if_re.ko loaded.

If not make sure you have

if_re_load="YES"

in /boot/loader.conf.local NOT /boot/loader.conf as /boot/loader.conf is overwritten on upgrade.

coreybrett

Has anyone had trouble with RTL810xE chipsets? Would this driver cover those?

Napsterbater

@coreybrett from what I can tell. This driver should work with it.

But worst case be ready to edit the loader.conf.local from the console and remove the reference to it just in case..

stephenw10

Yes, there's only one driver, re(4), for all the Realtek Gigabit NICs. It should work for that.

Are you actually seeing issues though? I would only use the alternative driver if you are.

Steve

Napsterbater

@stephenw10 to be clear that model is a fast ethernet not a gigabit. If that makes a difference.

stephenw10

Ah, been a while since I saw one of those. It's listed as supported by re(4) though so it's probably good.
Though I would recommend not using it at all if there is any other option. The Realtek 100M NICs were terrible.
I hope it's better than the rtl8139: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd/blob/master/sys/dev/rl/if_rl.c#L48

Steve

wkn

Compiled on FreeBSD 11.3-STABLE (last):

if_re.zip

whosmatt

@coreybrett

I have a bunch of HP motherboards that have them:

re0@pci0:3:0:0: class=0x020000 card=0x2b05103c chip=0x813610ec rev=0x07 hdr=0x00
    vendor     = 'Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.'
    device     = 'RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller'
    class      = network
    subclass   = ethernet

I don't currently use this interface with my pfSense box but I did for a while and it was fine with the driver that ships with pfSense. By "fine" I mean it wasn't obviously broken in any way.

pereirara24

I just updated it and it really increases the software performance very well. Thank you very much for this contribution, it is very appreciated.

steeletanner

@pereirara24 do you still have to check the box ofr the three options below in system advanced networking:
Disable hardware chekcsum offload
Disable hardware tcp segmentation offload
Disable hardware large received offload

I am running stock now and my box hangs when i do large transfer over the network sometimes

Thank you.

Napsterbater

@steeletanner I would say yes.

stephenw10

Yes, I would disable all hardware offloading if you're seeing an issue.

Do you see anything logged when this happens? Any sort of crash report when you reboot?

Steve

tpf

Using this driver for months on 2.4.4 without problems. Now, after upgrade to 2.4.5 I'm getting lots of errors with driver loaded. Without driver loaded, the troughput TO firewall is only around 580mbit but no errors. Traffic FROM firewall is round about 970 mbit. Generating traffic with iperf Server on pfSense. Using the compiled driver version for FreeBSD 11.3 as postet above.

I'm using VLAN on LAN. WAN interface is free of errors.

Any ideas? Disabled hardware checksum offloading without effect.