Is it possible to install updated NIC drivers in FreeNAS?

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Stranded Camel

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I've got a Realtek RTL8111H Gigabit LAN controller in my FreeNAS box that only works at 100 Mbps mode. The FreeBSD drivers for it are apparently not very good, from what my searches have turned up, and so I'm wondering if I can install a more recent kernel in FreeNAS in order to get an updated driver?

I'm running FreeNAS-9.10.1-U4 (ec9a7d3), by the way. The more recent versions have a regression that causes them to fail to install on certain hardware; it's been reported and confirmed by a fair number of users, but it still hasn't been fixed, and so upgrading FreeNAS is not an option for me.

Thanks in advance!
 
D

dlavigne

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Newer versions of drivers won't fix the fact that Realtek isn't a good choice for network hardware.

With regards to updating (which does include the latest drivers for the underlying OS), which hardware issue are you referring to?
 

SweetAndLow

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I've got a Realtek RTL8111H Gigabit LAN controller in my FreeNAS box that only works at 100 Mbps mode. The FreeBSD drivers for it are apparently not very good, from what my searches have turned up, and so I'm wondering if I can install a more recent kernel in FreeNAS in order to get an updated driver?

I'm running FreeNAS-9.10.1-U4 (ec9a7d3), by the way. The more recent versions have a regression that causes them to fail to install on certain hardware; it's been reported and confirmed by a fair number of users, but it still hasn't been fixed, and so upgrading FreeNAS is not an option for me.

Thanks in advance!
Realtek are just not very good. You can't really change the driver in FreeNAS it uses the driver from FreeBSD 10.3. does FreeBSD 11 have the update you want?

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk
 
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gpsguy

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Just buy an Intel Pro/1000 NIC. Cost is about $30 USD.
 

Stranded Camel

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Newer versions of drivers won't fix the fact that Realtek isn't a good choice for network hardware.

Where I live, I was able to find exactly one NAS-style case, with exactly two mobos of the appropriate form factor, both of which use Realtek NICs. And neither had slots in which expansion NICs could be plugged in.

So my options are limited to driver level.

With regards to updating (which does include the latest drivers for the underlying OS), which hardware issue are you referring to?

This one.
 

Stranded Camel

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Stranded Camel

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Just buy an Intel Pro/1000 NIC. Cost is about $30 USD.

If that requires an expansion slot on the mobo, it won't work. I've only got one (a PCI Express 3.0/2.0 x16 slot) and with all the drives, fans and power supply there's simply no space left.

I do have a couple USB3 > Ethernet adapter options: this one and this one. Any idea if they'll work with FreeBSD. I normally use Linux, so I really have no clue.
 

gpsguy

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No, USB Ethernet is not supported by FreeNAS.

If FreeNAS 11.0 will resolve your issue, I would just be patient and wait for it's release. RC3 is available right now, the last I heard was the 11.0 was scheduled for next week.
 

zoomzoom

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@Stranded Camel Please edit the last post to add things if someone hasn't replied, by clicking on the edit link next to the time of your post.

Realtek NICs are one of the worst, if not the worst, to use for a server/router (there used to be great post on the Sophos forums explaining why, but I never bookmarked it). You may be able to get an in depth reasoning by using the forum search tool, else duckduckgo or google should be able to elaborate with some detail.
 

Stranded Camel

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@Stranded Camel
Realtek NICs are one of the worst, if not the worst, to use for a server/router

E-gads!

I really had no choice in the matter, unless I was willing to move up to a desktop case -- there's a much better motherboard selection available for them. But I really needed something relatively small.

And a poster above says that FreeBSD doesn't do Ethernet over USB, unfortunately. When I opted for FreeNAS, I knew BSD was 5 or so years behind Linux in hardware support, and probably 6 or 7 behind Microsoft, but my number one requirement was native ZFS support, so I went with it anyway.

In any case, I'd be happy to just get this NIC into 1 Gbps mode, rather than 100 Mbps, even if it were the worst gigabit NIC around. It would be an improvement.
 

Stranded Camel

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No, USB Ethernet is not supported by FreeNAS.

If FreeNAS 11.0 will resolve your issue, I would just be patient and wait for it's release. RC3 is available right now, the last I heard was the 11.0 was scheduled for next week.

I tried the nightly build, but it froze at the same point in the installation on a couple different USB sticks. But I'll keep my fingers crossed!
 

zoomzoom

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@Stranded Camel
Please EDIT your last post to add things too if someone hasn't replied after your latest post


I tried the nightly build, but it froze at the same point in the installation on a couple different USB sticks. But I'll keep my fingers crossed!
How do you know the installer froze? FreeNAS will take a decent amount of time to install to a flash drive and will appear to have frozen, but will eventually begin to show the percentage of the install progress.

If it has indeed frozen, t's either due to the flash drives, or the media from which one booted from for the installer.
 
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Stranded Camel

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@Stranded Camel
Please EDIT your last post to add things too if someone hasn't replied after your latest post

I'm afraid I don't understand what you're referring to. I've included relevant quotes from every post I've replied to in order to provide context and make things easy to understand.


How do you know the installer froze? FreeNAS will take a decent amount of time to install to a flash drive and will appear to have frozen, but will eventually begin to show the percentage of the install progress. If it has indeed frozen, t's either due to the flash drives, or the media from which one booted from for the installer.

The nightly's installer has a progress bar, and it took about a minute to go from 0% to 100% (this is a fast USB3 flash drive), but it got stuck at 100% for over 10 minutes, so I decided it was a good time to go to the grocery store. And an hour and a half later, it was still stuck at 100%, with no flashing from the USB stick's activity light.
 

zoomzoom

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I'm afraid I don't understand what you're referring to. I've included relevant quotes from every post I've replied to in order to provide context and make things easy to understand.
In other words, please stop double & triple posting... if you need to repost or reply to someone else once you've already posted, and someone else hasn't posted since your last post, click the Edit link next to the time of your post.

The nightly's installer has a progress bar, and it took about a minute to go from 0% to 100% (this is a fast USB3 flash drive), but it got stuck at 100% for over 10 minutes, so I decided it was a good time to go to the grocery store. And an hour and a half later, it was still stuck at 100%, with no flashing from the USB stick's activity light.
Then it's an issue with the USB drives you're installing to or the media your booting the installer from.
 

Stranded Camel

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In other words, please stop double & triple posting... if you need to repost or reply to someone else once you've already posted, and someone else hasn't posted since your last post, click the Edit link next to the time of your post.

I've never run into this particular convention before, I'm afraid. Let me see if I've got this right. You would have people who are responding to three separate posts...
  • Respond to post 1.
  • Copy the raw post with QUOTE tags.
  • Paste this text somewhere temporarily.
  • Cancel their response to post 1.
  • Respond to post 2.
  • Copy the raw post with QUOTE tags.
  • Cancel their response to post 2.
  • Paste this text after post 1 and copy it all together.
  • Respond to post 3.
  • Paste the text copied above before the text in post three.
  • Insert their answers.
  • Send this post.
And all this to save readers from spending hundreds of milliseconds scrolling past the extra padding, headers and footers that three individual posts would generate?

Surely you jest! :eek:

Then it's an issue with the USB drives you're installing to or the media your booting the installer from.

You forgot to include an argument, reasoning or anything else that would support this conclusion. But I'll save you the trouble -- my next step was to install the version of FreeNAS I'm currently using on this same USB stick (the second one that the nightly build failed on, by the way). And... here I am with a working install.

Ergo, the nightly has a regression.

Don't get me wrong -- in the short time I've been using FreeNAS, I've been very impressed by it! I tried nas4free before this, and it was a nightmare compared to FreeNAS -- it has scant, godawful documentation, most of which was made for versions from several years ago; a miniscule user community; the single worst system for setting up storage that I have ever seen (I felt like I was navigating a maze in the dark!); a broken SSH implementation that pretty much no one can get to accept password-free logins with an RSA key (and whose documentation would have users clobber any pre-existing SSH keys with a new one and then send their private key to the server, for God's sake!); and so on and so forth. So I'm absolutely loving FreeNAS.

But let's not pretend it's perfect, of that every problem people have with it is either user or hardware error.
 
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Ericloewe

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  • Respond to post 1.
  • Copy the raw post with QUOTE tags.
  • Paste this text somewhere temporarily.
  • Cancel their response to post 1.
  • Respond to post 2.
  • Copy the raw post with QUOTE tags.
  • Cancel their response to post 2.
  • Paste this text after post 1 and copy it all together.
  • Respond to post 3.
  • Paste the text copied above before the text in post three.
  • Insert their answers.
  • Send this post.
Your workflow sucks. Here's how you do it:
  1. Click reply or select text you wish to quote and click quote
  2. Write your text
  3. Go to 1 if you want to quote more.
 

Stranded Camel

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Your workflow sucks. Here's how you do it:
  1. Click reply or select text you wish to quote and click quote
  2. Write your text
  3. Go to 1 if you want to quote more.

This bizarre insistence on attempting to force forum users to adopt an absolutely idiosyncratic format for responding to posts --a format used just about nowhere-- contributes nothing to the forum, FreeNAS, or ixSystems. At the same time, it creates an unwelcoming, if not outright hostile, environment for users who want to resolve their FreeNAS problems.
 
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zoomzoom

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This bizarre insistence on attempting to force forum users to adopt an absolutely idiosyncratic format for responding to posts --a format used just about nowhere-- contributes nothing to the forum, FreeNAS, or ixSystems. At the same time, it creates an unwelcoming, if not outright hostile, environment for users who want to resolve their FreeNAS problems.

Seriously? o_O

Let's address some common sense:
  1. Most users, especially those looking for help, prefer a concise manner in which to disseminate information quickly and efficiently. Encountering a user who doesn't seem to understand there's a reason why ALL FORUMS enable users to EDIT their posts, one of which is to prevent what you're doing by double & triple posting, simply makes the job of users who are looking for help that much more time consuming as it discombobulates the information.
  2. It's inefficient to double, triple, & quadruple post when all one needs to do is edit their original post if no one has replied since their last posting.
    • It's analogous to one driving a vehicle that has a 10gal gas tank... one doesn't fill up after 1 or 2 gallons of usage, but when ~1/4 of the tank is left. Just as it's inefficient to top off the tank after 1 or 2 gallons of gas usage, it's inefficient to double, triple, & quadruple post.
  3. It's a massive disservice to all other users to not utilize EDIT to edit your posts, if no one has replied after your latest post, as it leads to the issues users encounter on, for example the XDA forum, where few care about forum etiquette. Just as there's a such thing as conversation etiquette, there's forum etiquette.
Why do you believe every other user on this forum uses EDIT, but believe expecting the same of you is asking too much?
  • It's even more baffling why a user who was asked 3 times, by me alone, politely to do so would simply ignore the legitimate requests. If you find my polite requests as asking too much, you should try the same in the MSFN forum and see which response you prefer...

In reference to your bullets, it's not idiosyncratic, it's basic document formatting.
  • If one wanted to harp, they'd recommend utilizing [list] hierarchy, as shown above in my numbered list.
To prove a point, I've utilized proper hierarchy with your bullet list:



    • Respond to post 1
      1. Copy the raw post with [quote] tags.
      2. Paste this text somewhere temporarily.
      3. Cancel their response to post 1.
    • Respond to post 2
      1. Copy the raw post with [quote] tags.
      2. Cancel their response to post 2.
      3. Paste this text after post 1 and copy it all together.
    • Respond to post 3
      1. Paste the text copied above before the text in post three.
      2. Insert their answers.
      3. Send this post.
Which do you find more easily to read?
[/I]
 
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Stranded Camel

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Your obsessive insistence on hounding people to post in the format that happens to be your own personal preference is extremely unpleasant for the victims of this behaviour. If you like to post using that style, it's your right, but it's absolutely idiosyncratic -- I have literally never seen a forum where this is the expected behavior -- and you have no business trying to force it down others' throats.

I'd also point out the following:
  1. A double post is when a person posts the same thing two times. A triple post is when a person posts the same thing three times. I have done neither.
  2. I'm beginning to see a pattern here, where you are incapable of separating your own personal worldview from external reality. You are convinced that your own personal posting style is the only valid one, and you seek to force it on others. Likewise, you have made up your own personal definitions of "double posting" and "triple posting" which are completely divorced from their real meanings, which you then proceed to use to attempt to villify (as ignorant, etiquette-mocking cretins) those who don't act in the way you want them to.
  3. There is indeed a reason why forums allow editing -- to fix mistakes, for the most part, and also to add things the poster forgot to include originally.
  4. The idiosyncratic posting style you seek to impose breaks a very useful forum function -- the automatic notification of the person whose post is being responded to. That's how I knew you'd responded to my post -- I got an alert. If you would have edited any other post and responded to me there, I would have received no such alert.
  5. Your preferred style also breaks another useful forum function -- the Go to First Unread button.
  6. Finally, the posting style you try to force on others is potentially quite confusing for people following a thread when it lasts more than a short time, as new information is "ninja edited" into posts that people will often remember having already seen, and which they will therefore scroll over. Ninja editing is considered bad form in most parts, of course, but regardless of that, it's potentially confusing.
Even if your preferred posting style were enshrined in some code of conduct or ISO standard (its not), your obsessive harrassment to get people to use it only puts people off of the forum. It contributes nothing to FreeNAS or people's ability to solve the problems they're facing, and it's detrimental to the community.

Kindly cease and desist.
 

joeschmuck

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I'm going to jump in here and likely irritate some of the normal users here but I'm inclined to say that there really isn't a normal etiquette and things like this don't need to become an issue. This is not a topic in our forum rules and I hope it never is. I saw no abuse except by the regulars trying to force a personal preference on someone and while I'm sure they had the best of intentions, this got carried away. If someone wants to make several postings with individual quotes, they can do that, it's not abuse and in the postings above it didn't make it difficult to understand, they were just separate postings.

If someone has a hard spot with my posting here, I request you take a deep breath before adding a response. If you agree with it then lets just drop it and speak of it no more.

Cheers,
-Mark
 
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