Error: PFSense cannot continue without at least one network interface card

[cg50000p]

Hey guys,

Newbie here. Hope you can help.

Picked up one of these to be my new firewall router and hardware seems to be running fine.

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804597242866.html

Please note as stated, it has the newer 2.5g Intel 226 Ethernet chips, which I have read on here are not currently supported in the current version of PFSense. Is that still the case?

I have a cat 7 cable plugged into one of the ethernet posts on the device (Eth 0), and that is plugged into the ethernet port on the back of my cable modem.

Downloaded latest build of PFsesne and installed it without a hitch.

Getting errors stating:

"Default interfaces not found"

"PFSense cannot continue without at least one network interface card"

Please see attached. Thank you so much in advance for your time!!!

[Gertjan]

@cg50000p said in Error: PFSense cannot continue without at least one network interface card:

and hardware seems to be running fine

Then show us the part that scrolled just of the windows : the moment where the kernel recognizes and find hardware : the network adapter(s) :
If it found none, then it can't do 'routing' as a firewall / router needs at least 2 (1 with conditions) network interfaces.

See also this thread : Intel i226-V not recognized

[stephenw10]

Use a 2.7 snapshot for now. That should recognise those NICs.

Steve

[brunorocha__]

@stephenw10
How can I install a snapshot?

[stephenw10]

2.7 is released now, no need to use a snapshot:
https://www.pfsense.org/download/

[brunorocha__]

@stephenw10
Forgive me for my ignorance, but I did the installation of 2.7 and the same problem appears in the attached image of the friend cg50000. I am upset.

[stephenw10]

What NICs does it have?

[brunorocha__]

@stephenw10 04 ports I226-V.

[stephenw10]

Like rev4 or it has 4 NICs?

[root@test4.stevew.lan]/dev: pciconf -lvc igc0
igc0@pci0:25:0:0:       class=0x020000 rev=0x04 hdr=0x00 vendor=0x8086 device=0x125c subvendor=0x8086 subdevice=0x0000
    vendor     = 'Intel Corporation'
    device     = 'Ethernet Controller I226-V'
    class      = network
    subclass   = ethernet
    cap 01[40] = powerspec 3  supports D0 D3  current D0
    cap 05[50] = MSI supports 1 message, 64 bit, vector masks 
    cap 11[70] = MSI-X supports 5 messages, enabled
                 Table in map 0x1c[0x0], PBA in map 0x1c[0x2000]
    cap 10[a0] = PCI-Express 2 endpoint max data 256(512) FLR RO NS
                 max read 512
                 link x1(x1) speed 5.0(5.0) ASPM L1(L1)
    ecap 0001[100] = AER 2 0 fatal 0 non-fatal 0 corrected
    ecap 0003[140] = Serial 1 0008a2ffff12ecd4
    ecap 0018[1c0] = LTR 1
    ecap 001f[1f0] = Precision Time Measurement 1
    ecap 001e[1e0] = L1 PM Substates 1

[brunorocha__]

@stephenw10
I can't enter any command, because PFSENSE hangs on the same screen as the first question in this post. Is there another way I can extract this information?

[stephenw10]

I would try to boot something else to confirm. Something Linux based is most likely to function.

You could boot a FreeBSD 14 snapshot, that will allow you install even if it doesn't find any NICs.
https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/snapshots/ISO-IMAGES/14.0/

[brunorocha__]

@stephenw10

Hello!
I was able to boot PFSense (version 2.6) with a USB/LAN interface. I updated to version 2.7 and now it recognizes the I226-V ports!

Thank you very much for all your attention!

[stephenw10]

Nice!

That's odd though. The 2.7 installer did not find that NICs directly?
There should be no difference between and upgrade from 2.6 or a clean 2.7 install. Certainly the kernel and drivers are the same.

Steve

[brunorocha__]

@stephenw10
I also found it very strange, because I installed version 2.7 before and it didn't recognize it. But this morning I tried to install the 2.6 version, use the USB interface and perform the update and this way it worked. Maybe it's something about the motherboard. Can I create a new topic about this case and point out this alternative?

[stephenw10]

It seems more like a bug if that's repeatable. Though it could be something specific to that board. It's hard to see how it would be any different.

[brunorocha__]

@stephenw10
I believe it could be yes. But resolved on my part. Thanks again for all the help!