Official Realtek Driver Binary 1.95 For 2.5.0-DEVELOPMENT (amd64) FreeBSD 12.1-STABLE

christian.k

I just compiled the Realtek 1.95 driver for pfSense 2.5.0-DEVELOPMENT (amd64) FreeBSD 12.1-STABLE.

Have fun :-)

Download if_re.zip

mattlach

@christian-k

Realtek used to be considered garbage and not required for any server/routing/firewall type of applications.

Has that changed? Or is this just for fun/testing?

jimp

@mattlach said in Official Realtek Driver Binary 1.95 For 2.5.0-DEVELOPMENT (amd64) FreeBSD 12.1-STABLE:

Realtek used to be considered garbage and not required for any server/routing/firewall type of applications.

Has that changed? Or is this just for fun/testing?

It has not changed much. Hence the need to compile drivers from outside the FreeBSD source to lessen the breakage.

mattlach

@jimp

Makes sense. Yeah, so still shop around for Intel (or at Least Broadcom NetXtreme) NIC's for your custom router builds then.

I wonder how much cheaper Realtek network chips are, that all the major consumer motherboard manufacturers still default to them, despite their horrific reputation.

christian.k

Realtek is ok for small non-commercial networks. For me, pfSense 2.5 (4 VLAN, Suricata, OpenVPN, pfBlockerNG, ACME, DynDNS, etc.) runs completely error-free on a Zotac CI329. WAN (cable internet provider 1000 Mbit's) speedtest incl. Suricata (IPS/inline Mode) 955 Mbit's. Without official Realtek drivers, depending on the FreeBSD version, I sometimes only reach 650 Mbit's.

stephenw10

Mmm, it's very variable. I've never seen it give trouble on the APU for example.

This driver seems to help specifically in the case where you are seeing watchdog timeout errors from a Realtek NIC.

Steve

NRgia

@christian-k
How did you manage to include Netmap support for the Realtek driver?

I tried to do the same for Intel ix553 cards that come with this board https://www.supermicro.com/en/products/motherboard/A2SDi-4C-HLN4F , but after compiling I'm getting this error:

link_elf_obj: symbol D undefined
linker_load_file: /boot/modules/if_ix_updated.ko - unsupported file type

With the current pfSense driver I only reach 176 Mbits with Suricata in Inline mode. If I disable suricata I get 960 Mbits

I compiled from ports /usr/ports/net/intel-ix-kmod

It's not my intention to hijack the thread, but I did not want to bother you with a private message.
Thanks

mikekoke

@christian-k said in Official Realtek Driver Binary 1.95 For 2.5.0-DEVELOPMENT (amd64) FreeBSD 12.1-STABLE:

I just compiled the Realtek 1.95 driver for pfSense 2.5.0-DEVELOPMENT (amd64) FreeBSD 12.1-STABLE.

Have fun :-)

Download if_re.zip

Hi, do these drivers also work with 2.5.0 RC?
Thank you.

jimp

You don't need to add on your own things for Realtek on 2.5.0. If the stock drivers don't work, then use the one from pkg install realtek-re-kmod