USB nics

[dszryan]

PSA

i have seen a lot of posts asking for usb nics that works with pfSense. something that can work with a NUC that you plan on using for running the software.

i have purchased this nic
https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B00ECQZM1A/
and can confirm it shows up as a NIC that supports VLAN

tl;dr

NUC specs (as reported by pfsense)
Vendor: Intel Corp.
Version: SYSKLi35.86A
Release Date: Thu Nov 12 2015

NIC Sepcs (the model number that supports vlans)
Brand StarTech.com
Item Model Number USB31000SPTB

[Gertjan]

Good, the kernel could find it, with the capabilities.

Can pfSense use it ?

[dszryan]

yes. the kernel picked it up. no additional drivers required. have setup vlan's.

excerpt of ifconfig below:
ue0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=8000b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,LINKSTATE>
ue0.2: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=80000<LINKSTATE>

[stephenw10]

What driver does it use? You might check the boot log to see that.

Are you able to get close to Gigabit speeds through it?

The problem a lot of people have with USB NICs is them failing after some time. I'd be interested in how reliable you find it after a few weeks. There are people using USB NICs with no issues though.

Another potential issue is that if it becomes unplugged and you reboot pfSense it will stop at the interfaces assign screen as the console and not fully boot. So be sure that doesn't happen.

Steve

[dszryan]

it does register as a gigabit duplex card, i still need to put the card through its paces

ue0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=8000b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,LINKSTATE>
media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
status: active
ue0.2: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=80000<LINKSTATE>
media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
status: active
vlan: 2 vlanpcp: 0 parent interface: ue0
groups: vlan

and regarding the hardware disconnecting, i mean the power supply could off too and the machine will not boot... will have to keep an eye out for that too.

[tman222]

@stephenw10

Looks like it would be the axge driver in FreeBSD?

https://www.startech.com/Networking-IO/usb-network-adapters/USB-3-Gigabit-Ethernet-Adapter-with-USB-Port~USB31000SPTB
https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=axge&apropos=0&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+11.2-RELEASE+and+Ports&arch=default&format=html

While I'm not a fan of USB based gigabit NIC's general, I've seen a little better performance with the ASIX based USB adapters over the Realtek based ones (this is only based on testing with laptops though).

[stephenw10]

Yup, me too. But even that is no guaranty of success unfortunately.

Steve

[dszryan]

@tman222 yes is it the ASIX driver.

ugen0.6: <ASIX Elec. Corp. AX88179> at usbus0, cfg=0 md=HOST spd=SUPER (5.0Gbps) pwr=ON (124mA)

fortunately, this is a working solution to give (an otherwise unused) NUC some purpose