NIC onboard Realtek 8111E

AhnHEL

I may start look around for other options as well. Found a few boards that looks OK
with Intel LAN chipset like the MSI IM-Q35 or the new MSI IM-QM67.
Or Supermicros X9SCV-Q or X9SCV-QV4. (based on the QM67 chipset)

I dont think the Intel 82579LM LAN ports are supported with pfSense 2.0 based on FreeBSD 8.1.

mrzaz

onhel:
I checked the HWdoc for 8.1 and you right. At least it is not mentioned there.
The only one I found was the 82573,82574 supported by the em(4) driver.
82567, 82579 and 82566 isn't. :-/ Not even in 8.2

There is a lot of references to Intel-cards that does not specify chipset though
so it is hard to know if it will work or not. Pure gamble.

Then I'm really back to square one as these boards are really the only ones
that I could see as alternatives that does not have 8111E chipset and
is Mini-ITX size and is supporting Core2Duo or Core2Quad.

Unless someone else has another tip of a board that would fit the above criteria.
Maybe the only option is to gamble and try the XG41 and if it doesn't work,
either put up a bounty or put it on the backburner until later BSD is included in PfS.

mrzaz

I can now confirm that the chipset in the Shuttle XG41 board reports as HWRev "0x2c000000" instead of the not working "0x2c800000". ;D

I had a discussion with people at Shuttle and they made a test of booting a XG41 with a FreeBSD 8.1 LiveCD
and the chipset seems to work/load OK. (see attached screenshot)

I will buy the unit soon and make additional tests and can give some small feedback later.
http://www.shuttle.eu/products/slim/xg41/overview/

I will use the following spec initially:

Shuttle XG41
INTEL Core2Quad Q8400 2660MHz 4MB CPU (BX80580Q8400) CPU-score: 3689 (Passmark CPUscore)
KINGSTON 4GB 1333MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 DIMM (KVR1333D3N9/4G)
WESTERN DIGITAL HD AV-25/ 160GB SATA 3Gb/s 5400rpm 32MB (WD1600BUDT) (changed the SSD to HD)

And will, when everything is up, add a WLAN b/g/n MiniPCI card and 2x cable/antennas.
Any recommendations on this, anyone ?

MiniPCIe bus and support for b/g/n spec. Preferable both 2.4 and 5GHz and dual antenna connector.

I have been looking into this board but not sure about the support in BSD.
http://www.icd.se/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1426

Best regards
Dan Lundqvist

Ps. One good thing is that it has physical COM-ports as well for Console support and
is shipped with tested CPU-cooling and a "verified" CPU and Memory list as well.
It has space for 2.5" drive (not included) and a slim CD/DVD bay (not included).
And also pre-made holes for 2 WiFi-antennas.

UPDATE 2011-10-26:
Machine has now arrived and installed. Installation of pfSense went without problem
and all HW incl. the CPU/Memory/LAN-ports/SATA/USB/Serial is detected OK.
The SMP with 4 cores is also working.

UPDATE 2011-10-28:
Added a bootlog from the Shuttle XG41.

Some notes:
cryptosoft0: <software crypto="">on motherboard</software>

re0: <realtek 8111="" 8168="" b="" c="" cp="" d="" dp="" e="" pcie="" gigabit="" ethernet="">port 0xd800-0xd8ff mem 0xfdeff000-0xfdefffff,0xfdef8000-0xfdefbfff irq 18 at device 0.0 on pci2
re0: Using 1 MSI messages
re0: Chip rev. 0x2c000000
re0: MAC rev. 0x00000000
.
.
rgephy0: <rtl8169s 8110s="" 8211b="" media="" interface="">PHY 1 on miibus0
rgephy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 1000baseT, 1000baseT-FDX, auto
re0: [FILTER]

re1: <realtek 8111="" 8168="" b="" c="" cp="" d="" dp="" e="" pcie="" gigabit="" ethernet="">port 0xe800-0xe8ff mem 0xfdfff000-0xfdffffff,0xfdff8000-0xfdffbfff irq 19 at device 0.0 on pci3
re1: Using 1 MSI messages
re1: Chip rev. 0x2c000000
re1: MAC rev. 0x00000000
.
.
rgephy1: <rtl8169s 8110s="" 8211b="" media="" interface="">PHY 1 on miibus1
rgephy1: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 1000baseT, 1000baseT-FDX, auto
re1: [FILTER]

And will try to do some performance measurements as well.

Dscf1142s.jpg_thumb
ShuttleXG41_bootlog.txt</rtl8169s></realtek></rtl8169s></realtek>

bdwyer

New member here with a Jetway JNC9C-550-LF. This unit also has two Realtek 8111E's onboard. I have no issue running pfSense; both NIC's detected, perfectly usable, VLAN's and all. I must note, I also have 're0: Chip rev. 0x2c000000' in my dmesg dump. I did a test install of ESXi 5 for the hell of it, but reverted back to a straight pfSense install. If your ESXi install is suiting you at the moment, stick with it, you have plenty of processing power at bay. Anything "lost in translation" so to speak is minimal in your case.

krylou

I also faced with problem of onboard nic.. it is simply doesn`t work at pfsense 2.0. using dmesg i discovered that hardware revision of my Realtek 8111E newer then driver existed at system. Here you can find resolution: http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=24362
For now I am trying to compile official realtek driver at 8.2 freebsd.

wallabybob

@krylou:

For now I am trying to compile official realtek driver at 8.2 freebsd.

You should really be trying to compile the driver on FreeBSD 8.1 because that is the version of FreeBSD used in pfSense 2.0. This might turn out to be easy, it might turn out to be difficult. If you want to get something working quickly I suggest you would be better off purchasing another NIC to use instead of the Realtek device. If you already have one or more working expansion NICs you might be able to use a VLAN capable switch to get additional interfaces: search the forums for VLAN port multiplier to see some posts that discuss this.

jimp

Since this topic still comes up in Google searches:

You can use a 2.1 snapshot if you need to use this NIC.

There are other forum threads that talk about compiling the driver and adding it yourself, but at this stage, using 2.1 is easier and preferably than manually hacking in a new driver.