realtek-re-kmod missing in pfSense 2.6 repository?

[RK0]

I took this off my own PFSense install on a ThinkCentre M90n IoT model from when the fetch command worked. It was in the root folder of my system. Posting it here for your use. Be sure to unzip it before you transfer it to your install of PfSense. This would be specific to the 2.6.0 release of PfSense, I've no idea how it would function with earlier/later versions...especially with the eventual move to FreeBSD 14 in the near future...

realtek-re-kmod-196.04.zip

[RK0]

@stephenw10 would you have any insight if the upcoming release of PFSense based on FreeBSD 14 would include the latest Reaktek driver package "baked in"? Is there a way to ask that be part of the updated code going forward?

[RK0]

@xenium1024 also, thank you for posting that the fetch command no longer works...once I saw your post, I copied the driver package off my system and stored it separately, in case I ever have to rebuild my router. Anyone else who had to use this package for their install may want to do the same.

[stephenw10]

The fetch command there only doesn't work because FreeBSD stopped building both .tgz and .pkg files for everything and now only build .pkg.
But also there is no need to use fetch you can just use pkg add dircetly.

We removed the re-kmod package from our repo because it was failing to build in our build system at the time. The build system is completely different now and the code in 14 is obviously as fresh as it gets so we could re-try. Let me see what I can do.

Steve

[A Former User]

Realtek Driver 1.97.00

USB to RJ45 adapter (only for the installation) could be a nice workaround. Some were reporting that the
adapters with an ASIX AX88179 chipset will be recognised out of the box.

Dobby

[stephenw10]

The realtek-re-kmod pkg is back in our repo for todays snaps.

Steve

[stephenw10]

It appears to work fine for me in an APU but it does throw a large number of warnings with the debugging options we currently have enabled.

[moshe4410]

@stephenw10 still cant update to it

[2.6.0-RELEASE][admin@pfSense.home.arpa]/root: pkg install realtek-re-kmod
Updating pfSense-core repository catalogue...
pkg: https://pkg00-atx.netgate.com/pfSense_v2_5_2_amd64-core/packagesite.pkg: Not Found

[Knight]

This post is deleted!

[stephenw10]

It is in the 2.7 development repo as of yesterdays snapshot. It's not available in the 2.6 repo.

It is actually in the 2.5.2 repo but you shouldn't be trying to pull from there because you're running 2.6.
Make sure you have the repo branch set to latest stable. Or upgrade to 2.7 dev if you want to test that, not on a production box!

Steve

[moshe4410]

@stephenw10 i need your help =],
i got 8111E realtek card, and it is only getting 100mb, if i try to force it to 1gb it breaks and dosent work, the card itself is 1gb compitable, i am on 2.6 , there is some drivers that can make it work on 1gb?, i tried everything on google, cant seem to make it work, the stock drivers cant work on 1gb, and cabels are ok, when i connect it to the lan interface it does seem to blink and work on 1 gb, but when connected to the dsl model(brige mode), it only gets 100mb, when i connect pc to the dsl router, it does get 1gb, but when connecting the dsl router to the 8111E,somehow the negotiation dosent get 1gb and only 100mb , thats why i think the driver is broken

[stephenw10]

You can still install it in 2.6 using:

pkg add https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:12:amd64/quarterly/All/realtek-re-kmod-196.04.pkg

But I doubt it will help with that issue. The standard driver should connect fine with that NIC. That really seems like some issue at layer 1. So the cable or modem itself. Try putting a switch between the firewall and modem.

Steve

[Knight]

This post is deleted!

[MxcZXAKM]

@stephenw10 I have the same issue. I have Realtek cards on my Zimaboard and I can get them to stay stable, until I install suricata. If I do that the WAN just shuts off (LEDs off) and comes back on periodically. I tried the links provided for the pkg in the command prompt of PfSense and nothing will download/install. It sounds like I just need to wait on 2.7.

[stephenw10]

Ooops should have been:

pkg add https://pkg.freebsd.org/FreeBSD:12:amd64/quarterly/All/realtek-re-kmod-196.04.pkg

Do you see anything logged though when it stops?

Are you trying to run Suricata in in-line mode?

Steve

[MxcZXAKM]

@stephenw10 thanks, so that URL worked. I plugged that URL into the console in the PfSense web interface and got:

Fetching realtek-re-kmod-196.04.pkg: .......... done
Installing realtek-re-kmod-196.04...
Extracting realtek-re-kmod-196.04: .... done
=====
Message from realtek-re-kmod-196.04:

--
Add the following lines to your /boot/loader.conf
to override the built-in FreeBSD re(4) driver.

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

By default, the size of allocated mbufs is enough
to receive the largest Ethernet frame supported
by the card.  If your memory is highly fragmented,
trying to allocate contiguous pages (more than
4096 bytes) may result in driver hangs.
For this reason the value is tunable at boot time,
e.g. if you don't need Jumbo frames you can lower
the memory requirements and avoid this issue with:

hw.re.max_rx_mbuf_sz="2048"

I then updated the loader.conf via SSH into the router. I added the two lines above at the very top of the loader file and made sure it wrote. I rebooted and I still have an issue where the WAN doesn’t grab an IP. I have to physically disconnect and reconnect the Ethernet cable. I have yet to try suricata again but yes I had it in inline.

[RK0]

@mxczxakm might want to put those lines into /boot/loader.conf.local

That way it (the manual settings you added) will stick around if you do an upgrade.

[MxcZXAKM]

@rk0 Should I have those lines in both or just the .conf.local? Should i remove them from .conf? I don’t understand exactly what these files are doing so I’m flying blind.

[RK0]

@mxczxakm the full file name (and subdirectory location) for JUST the "new" configuration parameters would be /boot/loader.conf.local (just saying that, since you wrote .conf.local)

I'd leave your /boot/loader.conf file as "pristine", and just add the

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

lines to the "new" /boot/loader.conf.local file
...and perhaps the
hw.re.max_rx_mbuf_sz="2048"
line if you don't have anything on the network using jumbo frames...which would probably be unlikely

[MxcZXAKM]

@rk0 Thanks for this!

login-to-view

I’d add .local to the note that comes up then. I took it literally.

Maybe it’s just normal Linux etiquette but wasn’t obvious to me.