Kernel Panic when loading axgbe after Upgrade to FreeBSD 14 based 2.7.0

jimp

Where did you get that kernel module for axgbe?

It doesn't appear to be part of the build or ports tree.

If the kernel module was still from 12.x it would almost certainly fail on a 14 kernel. Or even if it was against a 14 kernel that wasn't recent enough.

xplChris

This is strange, I never installed a kernel module in any way.

The maschine was setup with the image pfSense-CE-memstick-serial-2.7.0-DEVELOPMENT-amd64 build from 19.01.2022, which worked out of the box.

There was an preinstalled OPNsense on the DEC740 (as it came fresh from manufactory) but I deleted it and never booted it

stephenw10

Maybe it's remaining from the FreeBSD 12 build. What the date shown as?
ls -ls /boot/kernel/if_ax*

jimp

It's possible it's in the kernel just under some other name then. I do see ax in there but not axgbe, so it's just a bit confusing. The axgbe driver code references if_axa and if_axp, and I do see if_axp.ko in the kernel modules, but trying to load it by hand says it's already in the kernel (even though kldstat -v does not show axp).

device axp is in the kernel, and a peek at the axgbe source does show it would be attaching as ax so it does appear to be in the kernel already, not a module.

That is one convoluted driver naming structure, though!

stephenw10

Yeah that's fun*:

The axp device driver first appeared in FreeBSD 13.0.

     Another version of	the driver is already present in FreeBSD.  This	driver
     was named as "axgbe" earlier, which is renamed as "axa" now.  This	driver
     is	for the	ACPI based Ethernet controllers	in the previous/older version
     of	the hardware.

Maybe it needs axa(4).

jimp

That's possible, though it doesn't look like the if_axa module is being built and it's not in the kernel. Hard to tell if they're mutually exclusive when building or if one can override the other when loaded in loader.conf.

xplChris

Moin,

I've no physical access to the machine (next time I think about Thursday) so I could only have a look at the running machine with FreeBSD 12. On thursday, I may boot from a FreeBSD 14 installer.

[2.7.0-DEVELOPMENT][root@boavista.emetriq.com]/root: ls -ls /boot/kernel/if_ax*
33 -r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  46616 Jan 19  2022 /boot/kernel/if_axe.ko
29 -r-xr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  38688 Jan 19  2022 /boot/kernel/if_axge.ko

stephenw10

You could try disabling it at the boot loader prompt to allow it to boot:

set hint.ax.0.disabled=1
boot

Plus any others if there's more than one ax NIC.

Steve

xplChris

Thanks for this hint, I'll give it a try next time I'm in front of the machine, which is probably this thursday.

I'll also try putting the module into module_blacklist in the bootloader.conf. Right now the ax* NICs are unused, so no impact on functionality ;-)

xplChris

Moin,

I took some time, but today I'm on-site and gave the "NIC" disable thing a try. I added three lines in /boot/loader.conf before I upgraded the machine

[2.7.0-DEVELOPMENT][root@boavista.emetriq.com]/root: grep ax /boot/loader.conf
hint.ax.0.disabled="1"
hint.ax.1.disabled="1"
module_blacklist="axgbe"

The upgrade worked like charm and everything is working as expected

As a side node: I didn't found any clue for the 10GE AMD ax devices on the FreeBSD12 2.7.0, so the NICs weren't functioning anyway.

Thanks! for your help.

Greetings,
Chris