Issue with X710 10GbE SFP+

[fr33tk]

Hi, after upgrading to FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE-201503270027 i am having issue with X710 10GbE SFP+ network card. Freenas is stuck on error:
ixl0: ixl_set_flowcntl: Error retrieving link info from aq, -56 . Added a screenshot. And freenas is not booted properly at all.
Before FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE-201503270027 release the network card wasn't even recognised.
Maybe someone has some suggestions how to resolve this.
Thanks.

 

[dlavigne]

You can disable flow control by creating a Tunable of type sysctl, value 0, and variable hw.ixl.fc.

What do you mean by "freenas is not booted properly at all"?

 

[fr33tk]

Already tried to disable that tunables, no luck, didn't help. Actually according to man pages of ixl flow control should be disabled by default.
"freenas is not booted properly at all" i mean that freenas is flooding messages os screen. No promt for login or normal freenas on screen menu. Just check screenshot i uploaded.

 

[dlavigne]

Does ifconfig ixl0 down stop it?

 

[fr33tk]

I can't even get access to shell when booted is this version 201503270027

 

[dlavigne]

In that case, reboot into a previous working environment and create a bug report at bugs.freenas.org. Post the issue number here.

 

[cyberjock]

I'm betting there was no support for the card, the driver was added but is very new, and now you are left with a driver that is new (and therefore buggy).

 

[fr33tk]

Submitted a bug report https://bugs.freenas.org/issues/9117

 

[j_r0dd]

That was the card I was looking at adding too. I will hold off for a bit.

 

[j_r0dd]

Is there any update if this card is running more stable now? Not much useful information in the bug report.

 

[jgreco]

There's no pressing need to run the latest hardware. The X520's are known to be solid, stable cards.

Drivers for Intel stuff typically flow from the Intel driver development group, into the FreeBSD codebase, and then into the TrueOS codebase. The process can take awhile and you're stuck being a guinea pig. If you're looking to /buy/ a card, rather than being in the situation of having one embedded on your mainboard, you're better off getting cards known to work well.

 

[j_r0dd]

TBH I spaced out and completely forgot about this thread before I ordered the card the other day. Oh well.

 

[pclausen]

Is the Intel E10G41AT2 (single port RJ45 10Gbps) card supported at this time?

 

[cyberjock]

I don't believe so, but it may be supported by the driver. If you bought it already it would be nice to know. ;)

 

[pclausen]

No I haven't purchased it yet. A friend of mine has 2 of them along with the Netgear Prosafe XS708E 8 port switch. He's running windows, so no driver issue for him.

He has agreed to act as a remote backup for my ~50TB of data. The plan is to use BTsync once the initial copy has been done. I was thinking of taking my storage to him and do the initial copy over 10G. He's getting almost 95% utilization on his 10G link between his 2 servers when copying files between them (both run Areca RAID6 arrays).

Is Samba/CIFS going to have issues pumping out data at a similar level of utilization?

I looked at the X520, but I'm not sure if they make 10G SFP+ RJ45 transceivers and if they do, if they are reasonably priced. The E10G41AT2 runs about $200 on eBay.

 

[mjws00]

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 300MBps is where CIFS often bottlenecks on good hardware. i.e 30% not 95%. With multiple connections and fast cores you can do a little better.

 

[pclausen]

That sucks. Is there something else I can use besides CIFS to get my FreeNAS server talking to my friends Windows server over a 10G link that will get me closer to the 95% he's seeing?

 

[mjws00]

run windows ;)

Short answer is NFS with sync disabled can pretty much max out 10GBe. For a non-critical seed type move it may be viable. ISCSI can do better than cifs but also has implications. You may be able to use a tool to open up multiple threads and get throughput up as well. Even FTP is lightweight and can fly. Multi-channel is coming but in the meantime Samba is a little rough when trying to fill a large pipe.

 

[Ericloewe]

You just need multiple connections, not necessarily multiple clients.

 

[j_r0dd]

You won't find a 10GBase-T SFP+ module. They do not exist.