Realtek device driver update

chrcoluk

I think this is for FreeBSD not pfSense to fix.

For whatever reason FreeBSD does not implement the latest realtek driver, which has been shown time and time again to fix issues on realtek hardware (check the FreeBSD forums and mailing lists).

It is possible no one has ever done a PR to get the driver updated, I havent checked that.

Realtek hardware is adequate on windows for home and light business environments,, the issue on FreeBSD is the driver.

If you not willing to update the driver, I highly recommend disabling checksum offloading for realtek hardware to resolve various issues, this doesnt solve everything on realtek but fixes about 90% of observed issues I have seen over the past decade or so. Since realtek has no interrupt moderation feature, one option to also consider is enabling polling, which will moderate the interrupts OS side.

@chrcoluk:

I think this is for FreeBSD not pfSense to fix.

For whatever reason FreeBSD does not implement the latest realtek driver, which has been shown time and time again to fix issues on realtek hardware (check the FreeBSD forums and mailing lists).

It is possible no one has ever done a PR to get the driver updated, I havent checked that.

Realtek hardware is adequate on windows for home and light business environments,, the issue on FreeBSD is the driver.

If you not willing to update the driver, I highly recommend disabling checksum offloading for realtek hardware to resolve various issues, this doesnt solve everything on realtek but fixes about 90% of observed issues I have seen over the past decade or so. Since realtek has no interrupt moderation feature, one option to also consider is enabling polling, which will moderate the interrupts OS side.

Polling is no longer available in 2.4 as only legacy and broken hardware used to profit from that.

chrcoluk

polling works as I tested it, but yeah I did my own custom kernel with it available and had to be configured in the terminal not GUI.

Thanks for clarifying its no longer officially supported.

@chrcoluk:

polling works as I tested it.

Well, it's not in the GUI is what I meant.

chrcoluk

Sorry I updated my reply now as you replied again.

On 2.4.1 and newer tho the pfSense kernel is no longer in a public repo (or at least wasnt a month or so ago) so a custom kernel now no longer is possible, when I enabled it was on 2.4 dev.

@TheNarc:

I've been running successfully with Realtek NICs for a long time now using Realtek's official driver compiled and loaded as a module.

@TheNarc: Any chance you would have a step-by-step about how to compile the driver and the tools' setup? I gave a try but ran into lots of warnings and errors and the compilation failed. I might not have had the right compiler. FreeBSD 11.1 continues to be a challenge for me.

TheNarc

Yeah I'll try to do this when I get a chance. I just want to make sure I can give it the effort it deserves, because there are a good number of steps involved and I won't be doing anyone any favors if I try to slap something together quickly that glosses over or omits certain things :) I've always done it in Virtualbox too, which simplifies some things but complicates others. For example, in my case the path of least resistance for getting the compiled driver off the FreeBSD VM was to SCP it to a Linux machine on the same network running SSH. But that's not going to be the path of least resistance for most setups, probably. Anyway, yes, I will try to remember to do this, it just may not be in the very near future . . .

Kyraksi

@TheNarc:

For example, when 2.4.0 became available, before upgrading I recompiled the Realtek driver on a FreeBSD 11.1 machine and uploaded it to /boot/kernel/ on my pfSense machine. Then I applied the 2.4.0 pfSense upgrade. And that's all I had to do, if I recall correctly. I don't think the 2.4.0 upgrade even removed the if_re_load="YES" from /boot/loader.conf.local that is needed to use the compiled Realtek driver instead of the one built into the kernel.

I think the main takeaway is that using this compiled Realtek driver is not officially supported by Netgate/pfSense, so it's very much buyer beware. But my experience has been good so far, and I think it's reasonable to assume - though there's no guarantee - that the current v1.94 Realtek driver which I compiled under FreeBSD 11.1 should work for all FreeBSD 11.x releases, but that a recompilation will be required for the first version of pfSense based on FreeBSD 12.x.

Thank you!

Just some thinks to mention, the 1.94 driver you posted works fine with CI327. However, I needed to put in following lines:
hw.pci.enable_msix="1"
hw.re.msi_disable="1"

Without msix re1 wouldnt work. No single packet captured from that interface with tcpdump.

TheNarc

With regard to a write-up on how to compile this Realtek driver, user jovimon made a great one:
https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=103841.msg775568#msg775568

Here's a direct link to it as well:
https://gist.github.com/jovimon/524e116471f249626fd2ccd141f3fe05

sdf_iain

I have an alternate method to install this driver using only your pfSense instance:

Edit two files using "Diagnostics" > "Edit File":

/usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/FreeBSD.conf
/usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/pfSense.conf
Change FreeBSD {enabled: no} to #FreeBSD {enabled: no}, this comments out these lines and enables the FreeBSD repository.

Run the following commands in "Diagnostics" > "Command Prompt":

pkg update -r FreeBSD
pkg install -y realtek-re-kmod

Re-Disable the FreeBSD Repositories (undo the change in step 1), netgate has them disabled for a reason
Edit /boot/loader.conf.local using "Diagnostics" > "Edit File":

if_re_load="YES"
if_re_name="/boot/modules/if_re.ko"

Reboot your firewall
Run dmesg using "Diagnostics" > "Command Prompt" and search for your interfaces in the output to verify the version

The RealTek RealTek Driver with some enhancements has made it into the FreeBSD repos.

TheNarc

@sdf_iain Thanks for this information. Do you happen to know whether this is the latest (v1.96) driver? Also, are any details available with respect to the "enhancements"?

sdf_iain

It is the 1.96 driver, but I don't know what all changes have been made.

I'm not sure what the exact differences are, but the source is here if you want to try to compare.

Looks like it might take a bit to compare the two files and see what the exact differences are (mostly because the order of things is different). If I had to guess I'd say the RealTek driver's changes are incorporated into the FreeBSD version of the driver, but that's a guess. diff shows that the order of things (methods, imports, variables) is different.

stephenw10

That source appears to be for the standard FreeBSD driver, that's built into pfSense anyway.

Is that kernel module loading something different?

Steve

sdf_iain

@stephenw10
My mistake that kernel module SAYS it's the 1.96_04 version from RealTek

I linked the wrong source, here's the link to the module in ports:
https://svnweb.freebsd.org/ports/head/net/realtek-re-kmod/

I have to admit that I do not know how that patch file is applied.

EDIT:
A quick dig into the Makefiles seems to imply that the driver is downloaded (from a FreeBSD Cache), then updated using the patch file, and finally built.

stephenw10

Are you testing that in 2.5 I assume?

sdf_iain

@stephenw10
2.4.5-RELEASE-p1, the RealTek RealTek driver is generally required for stability.

stephenw10

Hmm, interesting that pkg only appeared to exist in head.....

sdf_iain

@stephenw10
Its a very new package. If pfSense was configured to track quarterly instead latest in /etc/pkg/FreeBSD.conf, then the package wouldn't be visible.

It is possible that it will show up in the branch 2020Q4, when that gets created.

stephenw10

Yeah that would be it. Nice.

The package should still be install-able via 'pkg add' directly if you have the location. Which is generally better that changing the repo.

Steve

sdf_iain

Running a single command replaces steps 1 through 3 that I listed above:
pkg add https://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:11:amd64/latest/All/realtek-re-kmod-v196.04_2.txz