Is the Broadcom BCM957414A4142CC (BCM57414) 25G NIC supported?

Yves_

Hi,

I am currently upgrading my network and internet to 25G and was wondering if the Broadcom BCM957414A4142CC (BCM57414) is supported or not?

Thanks for your help

Best,
Yves

viktor_g

That should work starting from pfSense 2.5.0:
https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/9155

Yves_

@viktor_g thank you for your fast reply. I will test it out this weekend.

stephenw10

Several variants listed:
https://github.com/pfsense/FreeBSD-src/blob/RELENG_2_6_0/sys/dev/bnxt/if_bnxt.c#L108

Yves_

@stephenw10 amazing support! and of course also an amazing solution you created with pfsense which I use daily and love! thanks again for everything.

Yves_

@stephenw10 Sorry, to bother you.

I finally had time to upgrade my NIC to the Broadcom BCM957414A4142CC.

It seams that as soon as I create a VLAN on the bnxt0 or bnxt1, the card no longer works and longer transmits any packages.

Do you have any Idea how to debug this issue and solve it?

Thanks for your help.

heper

@yves_ https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=236983

Yves_

@heper Thanks for your fast reply!

Do you know how I can commit this patch https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/commit/?id=5acfa48bb2585adfb8ceeacb695c6e6cc660894d to my pfSense 2.6?

stephenw10

@heper said in Is the Broadcom BCM957414A4142CC (BCM57414) 25G NIC supported?:

https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=236983

That bug seems to be that VLAN traffic is not passed. Though it's not entirely clear because the example they give is vlan1 (the worst possible example!). Are you seeing just that or that all traffic stops passing?

You might try enabling promiscuous mode on the NIC and see if that then starts passing traffic.

To actually include that patch you would need to recompile the driver against FreeBSD 12-stable with the code included. Then copy the module across.

Steve

Yves_

@stephenw10 Thanks a lot for your quick repsone ;-)

If I run following two commands it kills all communication also on untagged traffic from bnxt0

ifconfig vlan50 create
ifconfig vlan50 vlan 50 vlandev bnxt0

Everything goes DARK!

ifconfig bnxt0 promisc

We are BACK online.

So the big question is. What is the disadvantage of running ifconfig bnxt0 promisc? And of course I will always need to run that command after a reboot (of course u can script it, I know).

There was a way to fix the gateway monitoring and services on the interface thru System -> Patches -> and Adding a New Patch. Would that not be possible with this issue as well? Because "recompiling a driver against FreeBSD 12-stable" sounds like something I am not able to do to be honest :-( well I could try?!

stephenw10

System Patches can only address run-time scripts they cannot change compiled binaries, like drivers.
Running in promiscuous mode is probably not going to make much difference in general use. The problem will be if you apply something that unintentionally takes it out of promisc mode...

Steve

Yves_

@stephenw10 Ah okay... Can I as a FreeBSD noob "recompiling a driver against FreeBSD 12-stable" or should I ask on a freelancer plattform for someone who does it for me? Is there like a tutorial on this?

stephenw10

It's certainly possible to try it. Install FreeBSD 12-stable with the build tools. Apply that patch to the bnxt driver code. Run 'make' to build the driver module. Copy the result across into pfSense and load it.
Of course things become more complex if the patch doesn't apply or the result fails to build...
It's been a while since I've done that so the precise details are no longer with me.

Steve

Yves_

@stephenw10 btw. should this not be against freebsd 12.3 stable? since pfsense 2.6 is running 12.3?

stephenw10

It shows as 12.3 because 12.4 has not been branched from it but it's 12-stable. Though I'd expect either to work. If it will work at all!

Steve

Yves_

@stephenw10 Okay, I have a VM with FreeBSD 12-stable up and running. Now I need to figure out what to do :-) I will make a tutorial for anyone later.

Yves_

@stephenw10 okay... so I am compiling now. changes worked well. but am i correct to assume that if I run kldstat -v | grep bnxt and it says "94 pci/bnxt" that the bnxt driver is inside of the kernel? so I don't have to replace only the driver for the bnxt. i have to replace the whole kernel?

okay... i guess i just figured out that the compiled network modules are located in /boot/kernel so I need to replace the if_bnxt.ko with the new one :-)

stephenw10

No you can probably load the module in preference to the in kerne driver. Most drivers allow that.
Create /boot/loader.conf.local and add to it:

if_bnxt_load="YES"
if_bnxt_name="/path/to/module/if_bnxt.ko"

Recompiling a kernel to use in pfSense is a lot more involved. You need to build against the full pfSense sources.

Steve

Yves_

Recompiling a kernel to use in pfSense is a lot more involved. You need to build against the full pfSense sources.

Steve

yeah this is where i would have given up. but if i can just replace the module. i am very happy :-) to try that out and make a small "idiot" tutorial after

Yves_

@stephenw10 said in Is the Broadcom BCM957414A4142CC (BCM57414) 25G NIC supported?:

No you can probably load the module in preference to the in kerne driver. Most drivers allow that.
Create /boot/loader.conf.local and add to it:
if_bnxt_load="YES"
if_bnxt_name="/path/to/module/if_bnxt.ko"
Recompiling a kernel to use in pfSense is a lot more involved. You need to build against the full pfSense sources.

Steve

so if I understand you correctly I should not replace the if_bnxt.ko in /boot/kernel... I should put the new .ko file somewhere and tell the loader.conf (i don't have a loader.conf.local) to load this new driver?