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    Intel i210 NIC in 2.1

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    • J
      jasonlitka
      last edited by

      How do you like it?  I was considering those but just didn't want to deal with the hassle of bleeding-edge hardware that wouldn't be properly supported for 6 months.  I had a failing box and needed a replacement then.

      Anyway, I absolutely love the 8865 boxes I bought.  I'm considering tossing in some 10Gbe ports but I'm planning on holding off on that until you guys kick out 2.2.

      I can break anything.

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      • H
        hjvg
        last edited by

        i did wat you sayed finger but still my network card is not showing.

        this is how i did installed pfsense with a usb netwerk adapter then went to the shell added the file from your post added in the config and rebooted the pc but then it still did not show the network adapter.

        or is this file only working for the i210 and not for the i217-v?

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        • B
          brenno
          last edited by

          same here. Driver seems to work fine for i210 but not the i217 version.

          @Finger79: Is it possible that you can create a driver for the i217? Would be great!

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          • stephenw10S
            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
            last edited by

            Hmm, the i217-v appears to be still using the em driver which I didn't expect:
            https://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?DwnldID=17509

            No version of the igb driver is going to help in that case. You'll have to compile a newer em version.

            Steve

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            • D
              david.wery
              last edited by

              Many thanks Finger79  ;D ;D ;Dv! The solution worked great and saved me.

              I hope so the support will come out of the box very soon !

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              • G
                gspott
                last edited by

                @dhiltonp:

                I built my own image with haswell nic support, but it wasn't exactly trivial - that is to say, the changes necessary aren't hard, but getting a working build environment took some effort.

                Is it posible to get this image?
                I have I210AT on my ASUS P9D-I

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                • F
                  foonus
                  last edited by

                  @Jason:

                  …bleeding-edge hardware that wouldn't be properly supported for 6 months....

                  The Intel ET2 Server NIC's, among others using this same driver as the i210 are also having issues, has been out since Q3 2010.. 4 Year old hardware is definitely not bleeding edge.
                  Quite frustrating considering these NIC's were shipping as upgrade options directly from Dell and HP for their rack mount servers almost 4 years ago.
                  You wouldnt think for a second that there should be an issue with enterprise class hardware that has been in the field for this long, but this is indeed the case.

                  I wouldn't get your hopes up for this issue to be resolved any time soon. It first cropped up this summer during beta testing, and would involve Intel developing a current driver on FreeBSD 8 which they no longer seem to do, they are building for the 9.x Kernel. Its safe to say that unless something is changed with Altq there will be no solution till 2.2 based off the newer version of FreeBSD.

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                  • S
                    sebastiannielsen
                    last edited by

                    In which way are altq broken?
                    Are it a fatal brokage (eg leading to panics, crashes and such) or are it simply that altq just dont work, it will behave like altq didnt exist and all traffic are prioritized equally?

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                    • F
                      Finger79
                      last edited by

                      I'm getting a lot of requests for the custom pfSense 2.1 ISO with the i210 driver installed.  It's not feasible for me to re-build the image and send it to everyone, but below I documented the process.  It's not that bad.  The hard part was the first part (downloading the Intel driver source code, downloading the FreeBSD 8.3 ISO, building it in VirtualBox, transferring the compiled driver back out of the virtual disk image…)

                      (Below tools are Windows oriented.  The same tools may also be available on Mac/Linux.)

                      1.  Download the 2.1 Release ISO.
                      2.  Extract the ISO to a folder using something like 7-Zip.
                      3.  Copy if_igb.ko to /boot/kernel
                      4.  Add the line if_igb_load="YES" to /boot/loader.conf
                      5.  Make a new custom ISO.  I found a tool called UltraISO.  That, or I might have used WinImage to inject the files (I don't remember which tool I used).
                      6a.  Burn this custom ISO to CD if you want that installation method.  (Or PXE boot, etc.)
                      6b.  If you need to convert the ISO to be used like a memstick .img file, I used UNetbootin and was able to burn the ISO directly to USB flash drive.

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                      • G
                        gspott
                        last edited by

                        @Finger79:

                        I'm getting a lot of requests for the custom pfSense 2.1 ISO with the i210 driver installed.  It's not feasible for me to re-build the image and send it to everyone, but below I documented the process.  It's not that bad.  The hard part was the first part (downloading the Intel driver source code, downloading the FreeBSD 8.3 ISO, building it in VirtualBox, transferring the compiled driver back out of the virtual disk image…)

                        (Below tools are Windows oriented.  The same tools may also be available on Mac/Linux.)

                        1.  Download the 2.1 Release ISO.
                        2.  Extract the ISO to a folder using something like 7-Zip.
                        3.  Copy if_igb.ko to /boot/kernel
                        4.  Add the line if_igb_load="YES" to /boot/loader.conf
                        5.  Make a new custom ISO.  I found a tool called UltraISO.  That, or I might have used WinImage to inject the files (I don't remember which tool I used).
                        6a.  Burn this custom ISO to CD if you want that installation method.  (Or PXE boot, etc.)
                        6b.  If you need to convert the ISO to be used like a memstick .img file, I used UNetbootin and was able to burn the ISO directly to USB flash drive.

                        Thanks i will try.

                        The part i cant get to work is the burn/convert/memstick part.
                        I always get "cant load kernel" when i boot from the memstick.

                        But thanks again for th how to.

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                        • A
                          arkestler
                          last edited by

                          Yes, thanks for the tutorial.  I was able to burn the ISO, but when starting up the installer, I also get the "can't load kernel" message.  :(

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                          • F
                            Finger79
                            last edited by

                            Did you guys rename if_igb.ko.txt to if_igb.ko ?  Sorry if that sounds silly, heh.  Also, you're using the 64-bit pfSense release, right?

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                            • A
                              arkestler
                              last edited by

                              Yes, I did rename the file and also using 64bit release.

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                              • G
                                gspott
                                last edited by

                                @arkestler:

                                Yes, I did rename the file and also using 64bit release.

                                Same here.
                                I tried all thing i know but still only got "cant load kernel" with the modified iso.

                                i have tried in VirtualBOX Oracle also.

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                                • G
                                  gspott
                                  last edited by

                                  Has anybody got this working?

                                  I would like to install my new server since i soon getting GB connection to internet and the old server cant hold up.

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                                  • stephenw10S
                                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                    last edited by

                                    Just install the standard 64bit ISO and then load the kernel module afterwards. If you only have i210 NICs then that makes it slightly more complicated to get the module onto the box but still much easier than producing your own custom ISO. Perhaps you have another NIC you can add temporarily.

                                    Steve

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                                    • A
                                      arkestler
                                      last edited by

                                      @stephenw10:

                                      Just install the standard 64bit ISO and then load the kernel module afterwards. If you only have i210 NICs then that makes it slightly more complicated to get the module onto the box but still much easier than producing your own custom ISO. Perhaps you have another NIC you can add temporarily.

                                      Steve

                                      I only have the i210's with no option to put another nic, so how would I go about loading the module when the stock ISO won't even install?

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                                      • stephenw10S
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by

                                        Ah OK, because it finds no NICs at all?

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                                        • A
                                          arkestler
                                          last edited by

                                          @stephenw10:

                                          Ah OK, because it finds no NICs at all?

                                          Exactly!

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                                          • F
                                            foonus
                                            last edited by

                                            Can you boot pf from CD and make the necessary changes by adding the driver from a USB key and modding loader.conf before you reboot?

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