Intel Quad NIC not working in pfsense 2.1
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Hi!
I tried to install an Intel 39Y6138 Quad NIC, pci-e, with 82571GB chipset. For some reason it was not discovered by pfsense 2.1. I am using another pci-e card, a Realtek one, which is working great.
I have tried the card in a Windows Server 2008 machine I use as a file server, and it is working fine, all ports. I also tried it in a Win8.1 workstation, and it did not appear in device manager…strangely enough.
Does anyone have any clue to why it the NIC not discovered in my pfsense machine? It's an ASUS P8H77-I motherboard btw.
Would appreciate any help!
Best Regards
Tommy
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I tried to install an Intel 39Y6138 Quad NIC, pci-e, with 82571GB chipset. For some reason it was not discovered by pfsense 2.1. I am using another pci-e card, a Realtek one, which is working great.
Hmm … That's a strange looking part number. Turns out it's an IBM part, and certain versions of the card won't work in pci-e 'gen2' slots: http://www-947.ibm.com/support/entry/portal/docdisplay?lndocid=migr-5079623
If you confirm that your adapter hardware is at YK50EX level, then this adapter does not support PCIe slot(s) run at Gen2 modeCan you set the slot type in the ASUS bios?
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Can you set the slot type in the ASUS bios?
According to the manual, i can indeed! I need to wait until tomorrow to try it, thanks a lot so far charliem! I'll report back with the result :D
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Sorry to say I had no luck with this. Changed to Gen1, but still would not be recognised. I think it is the Asus board, as I can see the Realtek NIC in the BIOS ("x1"), but not the Intel NIC ("Not Present"). Very strange. I even updated to the latest BIOS, but no go. So I think I'll be heading over to the Asus board and ask some questions there. Too bad :-\
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction charliem!
Regards
Tommy
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Sorry to say I had no luck with this. Changed to Gen1, but still would not be recognised. I think it is the Asus board, as I can see the Realtek NIC in the BIOS ("x1"), but not the Intel NIC ("Not Present"). Very strange. I even updated to the latest BIOS, but no go. So I think I'll be heading over to the Asus board and ask some questions there. Too bad :-\
In my experience with most recent BIOS/UEFI from the big aftermarket oems (asus, gigabyte, asrock, msi etc) almost any card with a ROM should show up in a menu related to pci-e devices. This means almost all server nics as they usually have PXE. If its not there, you can count on the OS not seeing it either.
FWIW I have an asus p8z77i that does detect a similar HP nc364t quad 82571 card, so I don't think its a chipset compatibility problem but something that can be worked around with a bios tweak.
Unforunately asus will probably tell you to go pound sand, they blanket ignore anything related to *nix support and will play the "this is not a server board, don't support server components" game early and often. -
Unforunately asus will probably tell you to go pound sand, they blanket ignore anything related to *nix support and will play the "this is not a server board, don't support server components" game early and often.
I contacted Asus, and this was exactly what happened. Even if other cards work on the board, and they said that there should be no compability problem with this card, they did not want to help me at all. Pretty disappointing, since I have been a loyal Asus customer for many years.
So now I need to get hold of a lga1155 board which is compatible with my Intel PCIe 1.0 Quad NIC. Does anyone have any suggestions for me? No need for fancy extras since it's for a pfsense box.
Edit: I just remembered that I updated the ROM on the card. I used UEFI, since I wasn't sure what to choose. Does that matter at all? Should I choose PXE instead?
Best Regards
Tommy
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Why not try VmWare and run it in a virtual machine on the host?
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Excuse my ignorance…but would that work at all, since the BIOS doesn't recognise the card?
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BIOS would only recognize onboard NICs correct? So likely you have more hope at the O/S level such as vmware.
You could also invest into a switch that supports vlan tagging, and then you can have more than just 4 ports/interfaces. You can get a pretty decent one for around $100. I'm using one from TP-Link.
Though for the server itself, you still want to have at least two nics.
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It does recognise other pcie NIC's, just not this particular one…i am using a Realtek one now, works fine.
The VLAN switch is a good suggestion, so I think that will be my solution in the end.
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@heavy1metal:
BIOS would only recognize onboard NICs correct? So likely you have more hope at the O/S level such as vmware.
You could also invest into a switch that supports vlan tagging, and then you can have more than just 4 ports/interfaces. You can get a pretty decent one for around $100. I'm using one from TP-Link.
Though for the server itself, you still want to have at least two nics.
If the BIOS (now more likely to be U|EFI) does not do the bare minimum of detecting and initializing the hardware, it does not matter what OS you run. This is true for expansion cards as well as onboard components.
Vlans are a nice way to reduce hardware ports if you are not maxing out the interface, but don't consider this a sane practice to have your WAN port on the same switch as any internal LAN you care about.
(if its for an interface for a "Free Wifi" type of network or whatever, then yeah, who cares)I've notice some people on the pfsense forums seem to be rather casual about mixing vlans n' wans…don't cross the streams :)
I personally consider it about as smart and valid as harry homeowner's DIY home improvement that uses the neutral wire as a ground because "everything still works". -
I've notice some people on the pfsense forums seem to be rather casual about mixing vlans n' wans…don't cross the streams :)
I personally consider it about as smart and valid as harry homeowner's DIY home improvement that uses the neutral wire as a ground because "everything still works".I suppose I would be one of those people. Unless your switch is either misconfigured or broken, there is nothing particularly "hacky" or dangerous about this; frames don't just spontaneously jump from one VLAN to another.
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Hi people,
I have a similar problem with quad nic, rather than being a very new one I got a hold of a good old quad nic from SUN Microsystems. I installed it on a Pentium 4 machine, installed openBSD on the machine and everything went beautifully well.
Then I only swaped the IDE harddrive with an empty one and installed pfsense on it.
Booting pfsense from the CDROM went good, cards where detected and I was able to configure them. So I installed pfsense and rebooted. After a minute or 2 all nics of the quad nic card are going up and down. CPU usage went to 99%.
From my point of view, this is some kind of Software bug at pfsense.So if someone from the development team could help me here would be great.
Thanks in advance.
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I've notice some people on the pfsense forums seem to be rather casual about mixing vlans n' wans…don't cross the streams :)
I personally consider it about as smart and valid as harry homeowner's DIY home improvement that uses the neutral wire as a ground because "everything still works".I suppose I would be one of those people. Unless your switch is either misconfigured or broken, there is nothing particularly "hacky" or dangerous about this; frames don't just spontaneously jump from one VLAN to another.
My definition of broken is similar to the mindset of the National Electric code, it worries about design flaws that Harry Homeowner's neutra-ground does not.
A lot of switches are running their own OS that you have no insight into. Some might even meet my definition of broken on purpose, in which case putting them on the wide open internet is a Bad Idea
. (his WAN caveat is moot if you treat it like just another LAN) -
The biggest worry for me using vlans for wan-lan separation is what happens if your switch loses its config for some reason? Does if go back to the defaults? Will that bridge wan and lan?
I've never seen a switch do that but my experience is limited.Steve
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If you have a switch using VLANs only for WANs and a separate switch for just the LANs, it would be better.
VLANs are not a true security isolation mechanism because there are still some theoretical (but not practical lately) attacks to hop between VLANs. But if you treat your WANs as the hostile wastelands they are then if someone hopped from WAN1 to WAN2 they wouldn't have gained anything. I'd have to check but last I heard it had been quite some time since the last VLAN hopping bug/firmware in a mainstream switch.
I'd be more worried about local attacks where the attacker can actually be on the same layer 2.
That said, for most it's "good enough", though not ideal.
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I fixed your post ;)
I'd have to check but last I heard it had been quite some time since the last known VLAN hopping bug/firmware/backdoor in closed source firmware ultimately in full control of network traffic.
I can't be alone in choosing mostly verifiable software like pfsense to keep evil networks separate from ones I own because the commercial market has continued to fail us. That it happens to often be cheaper to use and more powerful in the right hands is pure icing on the cake.
If you're going through the trouble to run pfsense over an off the shelf black box and then throw something in front of it that defeats one of the main benefits in the first place, why bother at all?That said, for most it's "good enough", though not ideal.
"Good enough" electrical wiring burns down houses and gets insurance claims denied, I can't in good conscience recommend or condone the same in the IT world just because our voltages are lower and the "fires" do virtual damage instead :)
Ok I digress,
Edit: I just remembered that I updated the ROM on the card. I used UEFI, since I wasn't sure what to choose. Does that matter at all? Should I choose PXE instead?
Yeah try the PXE option, can't hurt.
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Time for a switch with open source firmware?
Steve
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Time for a switch with open source firmware?
Steve
Thats actually starting to become a possible option at the high end, if you need 10/40GbE and got some cash to burn :)
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Okay, I just forked up $124 for a new mini-itx board…the Gigabyte GA-H61N-USB3. H61 chipset, and PCIe 2.0, instead of 3.0. Card is not recognised >:(
I really dont get why this card is not working on mini-itx boards. I have three other ATX and micro ATX boards in which the card works fine. Is this card not working at all on the mini-itx platform?
Regards
Tommy
