Ixgbe driver status
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hello,
what the status of ixgbe driver in 2.2 beta?
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I'm not aware of any issues with it there. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but we don't actively test those NICs. Someone that has them would have to speak up to say more for sure.
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It works fine….I'm using it with a x520
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To elaborate, since I'm trying to get this to work right now for Intel X520-T2 cards on a pair of firewalls (upgrading from dual-port Intel PRO/1000 cards in each):
The current ixgbe driver from Intel is 2.5.25, while the current version included in the pfSense 2.2 beta build 20141010-0911 is 2.5.15. At the moment, pfSense appears to recognize my X520 cards, in that they are correctly identified by name as options for assigning interfaces (including correctly calling them by long name and the ixgb0/1 short interface names). However, I am getting no link lights on one card when connected to a switch and an orange link light on the other card when connected to the same switch. pfSense does not identify link-up from the console during interface assignment autodetection.
At the moment I'm trying to figure out how to upgrade the driver myself (hoping this is just a driver issue, not a hardware problem in my cards), but I'm stymied by the lack of "make" on the system. Intel ships the driver code but requires it to be compiled as part of the installation process. I understand the security reasons for not including development tools on the firewall – I'm just looking for the best solution to handle this. I see suggestions in similar threads talking about using a parallel FreeBSD system to compile code and then port it over, but I don't know how this would work for a driver like in this example. My Google-fu is failing me at the moment, so if someone can share a link with steps, that would be very helpful (the other threads just state the solution but don't suggest any links/details).
Can anyone suggest the best way to upgrade this driver as a possible resolution? Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!
Tangentially: Can the pfSense team consider upgrading to the latest ixgbe driver for snapshots/releases going forward? It'd be cool to have a mechanism to allow local users/admins the ability to upgrade drivers via pfSense, but that's more of a "nice to have" I think.
Some links/steps for anyone that is interested:
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http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/network-adapters/gigabit-network-adapters/ethernet-x520-t2.html
// confirm controller chipset (82599) -
ftp://ftp.supermicro.com/CDR-NIC_1.31_for_Add-on_NIC_Cards/Intel/LAN/PROXGB/DOCS/FREEBSD/freebsd.htm
// confirm that ixgbe is the appropriate driver for 82599, installation steps -
sysctl dev.ix | grep -i ".desc."
// look for all lines matching "desc" in the device driver readout – dev.ix.0.%desc: Intel(R) PRO/10GbE PCI-Express Network Driver, Version - 2.5.15 -
fetch 'http://downloadmirror.intel.com/14688/eng/ixgbe-2.5.25.tar.gz'
// download the latest driver from Intel's website
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Basically, build the kernel module on a FreeBSD 10.1 box and then transfer it to the pfSense box. Load it at boot time to over-ride the in kernel driver by adding:
if_ixgbe_load="yes"to the file /boot/loader.conf.local
Steve
