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    NBASE-T Support for Intel X550

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    • W
      WanTime
      last edited by WanTime

      so even its not user select-able under BSD why is the driver seeing the current state as unknown. it work at 2.5/5 with auto negotiating when at link partner request under every other OS and displays it under ui and driver but its not displaying the current state under BSD. the HW support is there but the driver just does not know what is going on ?

      i don't have a spare box up atm so i can just test on windows and pfsense(bsd)

      here is X550 under windows driver connecting to the same realtek 2.5 board working and displaying fine. only the user selectablity to NBase-t is limited to linux. auto negotiating to nbase-t should be working on all drivers and os, should be displayed on ui.

      Capture2555.PNG

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      • stephenw10S
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
        last edited by

        Pretty much, yeah. The driver in FreeBSD 11.3 / pfSense 2.4.5 cannot return a link speed of 2.5G or 5G but it seemingly can show unknown.
        The most recent drivers will be in FreeBSD 12 or those Intel offers for download.

        Try a pfSense 2.5 snapshot, currenntly based on 12-rel. Or a newer FreeBSD image.

        Steve

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        • W
          WanTime
          last edited by WanTime

          [2.5.0-DEVELOPMENT][admin@pfSense.localdomain]/root: ifconfig -m ix1
          ix1: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
                  options=e538bb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_UCAST,WOL_MCAST,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWFILTER,VLAN_HWTSO,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
                  capabilities=e53fbb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,TSO6,LRO,WOL_UCAST,WOL_MCAST,WOL_MAGIC,VLAN_HWFILTER,VLAN_HWTSO,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
                  ether a0:36:9f:
                  inet6 fe80::a236:9fff:fe27:b1f6%ix1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2
                  inet6 fe80::1:1%ix1 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2
                  inet 192.168.1.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
                  media: Ethernet autoselect (Unknown)
                  status: active
                  supported media:
                          media autoselect
                          media 100baseTX
                          media 1000baseT
                          media 10Gbase-T
          
          

          same in 2.5.0 :( definitely an FreeBSD/PFsense driver only issue . tested with Ubuntu bootable usb as well. as with windows it displays and auto negotiates at 2.5g just fine, i may test under newest FreeBSD tomorrow on the pfsense box it self.

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          • w0wW
            w0w
            last edited by

            Mine was always 2.5. Definitely FreeBSD/Intel issue, nothing to do on pfSense side. But at least it works now and this should not be a problem anyway.

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            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              Even the latest driver from Intel does not list 2.5G or 5G link speeds.
              https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/14688/Intel-Network-Adapters-Driver-for-PCIe-10-Gigabit-Network-Connections-Under-FreeBSD-?product=192957

              Steve

              w0wW 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • w0wW
                w0w @stephenw10
                last edited by

                @stephenw10
                This is the same driver we have in pfSense 2.5.0. Don't know are there any plans to implement full support for NBASE-T or not, can't find anything about it on FreeBSD side.

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                • I
                  indigo88
                  last edited by

                  Installed a Netgear CM2000 modem today. It's a DOCSIS 3.1 modem with a single 2.5GBASE-T port. The modem reports a 2.5G connection and pfSense reports "Unknown" as @WanTime showed earlier. I also see "<rxpause,txpause>" but it does not affect the connection as far as I can tell.

                  I'm getting an aggregate bandwidth of about 1.2 Gbps between devices so Comcast is overprovisioning my gigabit service. Upload is still terrible however.

                  Screenshot 2020-09-09 131753.png

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                  • B
                    bquinn123
                    last edited by

                    Can anyone recommend a 1-port and/or 2-port low profile card?

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                    • D
                      daplumber
                      last edited by

                      Just another data point:

                      pfsense 2.5.1-RELEASE (amd64)

                      Intel X550-T2 connected to the 2.5Gb port on an Arris Surfboard S33 Cable Modem support page:

                      Standard Specification Compliant	DOCSIS 3.1
                      Hardware Version	                V1.0
                      Software Version	                TB01.01.001.14_102120_192.S3
                      
                      Energy Efficient Ethernet               Enabled
                      

                      Connected with a 10m Cat8 Cable.

                      ifconfig -m ix1 reports:

                      media: Ethernet autoselect (Unknown <rxpause,txpause>)
                      	status: active
                      	supported media:
                      		media autoselect
                      		media 100baseTX
                      		media 1000baseT
                      		media 10Gbase-T
                      

                      From the transfer speeds it definitely seems to be connected at greater than 1Gb and seems to be 2.5Gb from what I can tell. Obviously it's not paused.

                      The latest Intel Driver is 3.3.24

                      The README still says:

                      This driver supports the following media type options:
                      
                      Media Type          Description
                      ----------          -----------
                      autoselect          Enables auto-negotiation for speed and duplex.
                      10baseT/UTP         Sets speed to 10 Mbps. Use the ifconfig mediaopt
                                          option to select full-duplex mode.
                      100baseTX           Sets speed to 100 Mbps. Use the ifconfig mediaopt
                                          option to select full-duplex mode.
                      1000baseTX          Sets speed to 1000 Mbps. In this case, the driver
                                          supports only full-duplex mode.
                      1000baseSX          Sets speed to 1000 Mbps. In this case, the driver
                                          supports only full-duplex mode.
                      
                      

                      Here's the dmesg output from boot:

                      ...
                      ix0: <Intel(R) PRO/10GbE PCI-Express Network Driver> mem 0xfcc00000-0xfcffffff,0xfcbfc000-0xfcbfffff irq 19 at device 0.0 on pci2
                      ix0: Using 2048 TX descriptors and 2048 RX descriptors
                      ix0: Using 8 RX queues 8 TX queues
                      ix0: Using MSI-X interrupts with 9 vectors
                      ix0: allocated for 8 queues
                      ix0: allocated for 8 rx queues
                      ix0: Ethernet address: a0:36:9f:28:1f:a6
                      ix0: PCI Express Bus: Speed 5.0GT/s Width x4
                      ix0: netmap queues/slots: TX 8/2048, RX 8/2048
                      ix1: <Intel(R) PRO/10GbE PCI-Express Network Driver> mem 0xfc400000-0xfc7fffff,0xfcbf8000-0xfcbfbfff irq 18 at device 0.1 on pci2
                      ix1: Using 2048 TX descriptors and 2048 RX descriptors
                      ix1: Using 8 RX queues 8 TX queues
                      ix1: Using MSI-X interrupts with 9 vectors
                      ix1: allocated for 8 queues
                      ix1: allocated for 8 rx queues
                      ix1: Ethernet address: a0:36:9f:28:1f:a4
                      ix1: PCI Express Bus: Speed 5.0GT/s Width x4
                      ix1: netmap queues/slots: TX 8/2048, RX 8/2048
                      ...
                      lo0: link state changed to UP
                      ix1: link state changed to UP
                      ix1: link state changed to DOWN
                      igb1: link state changed to UP
                      ix1: link state changed to UP
                      pflog0: promiscuous mode enabled
                      re0: link state changed to DOWN
                      igb1: promiscuous mode enabled
                      ...
                      

                      WAN is on ix1, LAN is on igb1, ix0, igb0, and re0 (motherboard) are not currently connected. Eventually ix0 will connected to a 10GBASE-T SFP+ transceiver on a 10G switch as soon as I get around to installing the switch with another 10G Cat8.

                      So the hardware still seems happy to auto-negotiate to 2500Mbps, even though the FreeBSD ix driver can't report it. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Annoying, but usable. Where do I sign the "Dear Intel" "metoo" petition? ;-)

                      –--------
                      This user has been carbon dated to the 8-bit era...

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                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        The presence of <rxpause,txpause> there indicates that flow control is active on that link. Not that it's actually paused at that moment.

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                        • D
                          daplumber @stephenw10
                          last edited by

                          @stephenw10

                          I knew that! :-)

                          Sorry, I should have rephrased that as “Flow Control appears to be working.” Rather than saying the NIC does not appear to be paused. Doh! ;-)

                          Any guess on when/if this could be addressed by Intel or someone else?

                          –--------
                          This user has been carbon dated to the 8-bit era...

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                          • stephenw10S
                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                            last edited by

                            No new information there I'm afraid.

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                            • B
                              Brian Cunnie
                              last edited by Brian Cunnie

                              2.5/5G added to the kernel's ixgbe driver with this commit: https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/commit/sys/dev/ixgbe/ixgbe.h?id=d381c807510de2ebb453a563540bd17e344a2aab

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                              • D
                                daplumber @Brian Cunnie
                                last edited by daplumber

                                @brian-cunnie said in NBASE-T Support for Intel X550:

                                https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/commit/sys/dev/ixgbe/ixgbe.h?id=d381c807510de2ebb453a563540bd17e344a2aab

                                Any idea on approximately when this should show up in a pfsense RELEASE? Would I have to change anything?

                                –--------
                                This user has been carbon dated to the 8-bit era...

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                                • stephenw10S
                                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                  last edited by

                                  It's only in 13-stable right now so at the very least it would need either to brought into 12 stable or pfSense moved to 13 stable (or newer).

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                                  • B
                                    Brian Cunnie @daplumber
                                    last edited by

                                    @daplumber I don't have any idea when it would show up in a pfsense release.

                                    Also, I've been struggling to get this to work on my non-pfsense straight-FreeBSD 13 firewall, and in spite of several attempts the Intel X550 negotiates a 1Gbe not 2.5Gbe connection. When I get it working I'll update the thread.

                                    D N 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • D
                                      daplumber @Brian Cunnie
                                      last edited by

                                      @brian-cunnie I have found that the connection needs to be pretty clean. I use a Cat8 factory made cable. The chipset also runs pretty warm, I had to ensure good thermal grease and adequate air flow.

                                      –--------
                                      This user has been carbon dated to the 8-bit era...

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                                      • stephenw10S
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by

                                        Interesting. One of the big advantages of 2.5G is that it runs over cat5e. I've never had an issue using igc. Not tried an x550 though.

                                        Steve

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                                        • D
                                          daplumber @stephenw10
                                          last edited by

                                          @stephenw10 I know that’s the spec. I just had zero auto negotiation issues when I switched to a Cat8 cable, I went from Cat5 straight to Cat8 as they were weirdly cheaper at the time, so I skipped Cat5e, Cat6, and Cat7. I just wanted it to work. The other end is an Arris S33 Cable modem which I think is some kind of Broadcom chipset? I don’t know if different chipsets/drivers are better at auto-negotiating?

                                          –--------
                                          This user has been carbon dated to the 8-bit era...

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                                          • B
                                            Brian Cunnie
                                            last edited by

                                            Solution: the reason I've been having trouble getting my FreeBSD-based firewall running on an Atom C3000 SoC to negotiate 2.5Gbe with my Arris S33 modem is that the custom Intel 10G X550 on the SoC does not do NBASE-T—either you get 1Gbe or 10Gbe and nothing in between. Sigh.

                                            On the bright side, I learned a lot about building the FreeBSD kernel and a reasonable amount about the ixgbe driver source code and about reading Intel datasheets. I must admit it was kind of fun.

                                            I'll revert to plugging the S33 & the firewall into a 1/2.5/5/10 switch, and that'll make it work. I was hoping for a direct connect, but that's not possible.

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