USB NICs, dynamic BSD device names and interface assignment?
-
I noticed that USB ethernet interfaces get their device names assigned in a somewhat unpredictable way, mostly by the order by which they are plugged-in, but I’m not sure if device name assignment is predictable during boot, if the USB interfaces remain plugged into the same USB port before and after restart.
Certainly moving the interface to another USB port may result the interface names changing.
So, what does pfSense do? Recognize the proper NIC by looking at the associated MAC address, or could it happen that I have randomly the DMZ and LAN segments swapped, if upon a reboot the corresponding USB ethernet NICs are recognized in a different sequence and have their device names swapped?
Of course, I could do lots of testing, but that won’t prove what’s (supposed to) happen(ing). Does anyone here know what the code actually looks at when making the relevant assignments for a NIC to its corresponding role?
-
Right now, it just looks at the interface name (vr0, fe0, etc.) as assigned by FreeBSD for physical interfaces.
Some OS's solve this problem by tying the name to the physical USB port, but I'm not sure what FreeBSD does.
GB
-
Right now, it just looks at the interface name (vr0, fe0, etc.) as assigned by FreeBSD for physical interfaces.
Some OS's solve this problem by tying the name to the physical USB port, but I'm not sure what FreeBSD does.
Thanks for the answer. That's a potential pitfall that I need to investigate further.
It might be useful to enhance pfSense to optionally assign interface roles based on MAC address rather than device name. -
It's not going to change if you plug it into a different USB port. The only way it could shift is if you add a second card with the same driver.
-
@cmb:
It's not going to change if you plug it into a different USB port. The only way it could shift is if you add a second card with the same driver.
Uhm, yeah. Sorry I wasn't clear. I'm trying to use a low-power netbook (one built-in ethernet) with two USB ethernet interfaces. So e.g. built-in -> WAN, USB1 -> LAN, USB2 -> DMZ
But if I can't be 100% sure that a specific physical port is always going to be the LAN because at boot time the system may discover one or the other USB interface first… -
But if I can't be 100% sure that a specific physical port is always going to be the LAN because at boot time the system may discover one or the other USB interface first…
Shouldn't, though I stay away from USB networking at all costs so I'm not sure, but it should be like PCI/PCI-e/PCI-X, where it'll never change from what it is (unless you rearrange the cards in that case), the detection isn't some random process.
