LACP with TP-Link Switch

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Baconfenix

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Hello Community,
I'm new with FreeNAS and so far I think it's pretty amazing, but now after using it a while I want to set up a LAGG with LACP (before I was using only one interface).

Hardware I use:
Switch: TP-Link TL-SG2008 (maybe not the best choice)
Gigabyte H97N-Wifi (Onboard: 1 Gbit Atheros + 1 Gbit Intel)

Before going any further, is it pointless/impossible to use the Atheros interface with the Intel interface?

I have tried a while now to get this working (not even ping-able), so I really would like your help.

First of all I tried to configure LACP over shell, but after each restart the settings were gone so I used the "standard" Console setup locally on the machine with "success", I created lagg0, added alc0 (Atheros) and em0 (Intel), deleted the standard Interfaces of em0 and alc0 so only lagg0 is active configured it accordingly to my network (192.168.2.118/24)

ifconfig lagg0 via shell:
Code:
lagg0: flags=8843<UP, BROADCAST, RUNNING, SIMPLEX, MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500 options=4019a<TXCSUM, VLAN_MTU, VLAN_HWTAGGING, VLAN_HWCSUM, TS04, VLAN_HWTSO>

ether fc:aa:14:21:40:14
inet 192.168.2.118 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.2.255
nd6 options=9<PERFORMNUD, IFDISABLED>
media: Ethernet autoselect
status: active
laggproto lacp lagghash 12,13,14
laggport: alc0 flags=1c<ACTIVE,COLLECTING,DISTRIBUTING>
laggport: em0 flags=1c<ACTIVE,COLLECTING,DISTRIBUTING>


Now for the switch (config enclosed).. like I read on different websources the "mode" (screenshot lacp 2) is either active or passiv determined by if the device is managing the LACPDUs or only recieving?! But I don't know in which mode my freeNAS runs, either way I've tried both active and passiv without any luck.
Is there anything else I need to setup on either side?!
Would really appreciate your help :)

Best regards Max (Baconfenix)
 

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Baconfenix

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Is there any way to figure out if a component (freeNAS in this case) uses an active or passiv lacp mode?
 

Mlovelace

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IIRC the atheros NICs are not supported by freeBDS/freeNAS. Therefore, you will not be able to successfully LAGG those two interfaces. If you were to buy an additional Intel NIC you could configure the LAGG.
 

jgreco

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The Atheros card should be supported but IIRC is a miserable PoS.

You need to make sure that the lagg component interfaces are up and configured correctly. You cannot just ignore them. They need to be configured without an IP address but configured as "up." Otherwise they're down, which isn't going to allow things to work. I'm guessing this might be your issue.

It is supposed to be possible to lagg two different types of interfaces together but it is a horrible idea in practice.
 

Mlovelace

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The Atheros card should be supported but IIRC is a miserable PoS.

You need to make sure that the lagg component interfaces are up and configured correctly. You cannot just ignore them. They need to be configured without an IP address but configured as "up." Otherwise they're down, which isn't going to allow things to work. I'm guessing this might be your issue.

It is supposed to be possible to lagg two different types of interfaces together but it is a horrible idea in practice.
Good to know, I thought atheros nic didn't work. I'll have to remember that, although I wouldn't put one into production. Thanks!
 

jgreco

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Good to know, I thought atheros nic didn't work. I'll have to remember that, although I wouldn't put one into production. Thanks!

Atheros makes a bunch of Ethernet parts and are sort of on a par with Realtek in my opinion. You'll often find Atheros ethernet chipsets on consumer grade mainboards and my memory is nagging me that some major embedded device manufacturer is big on them as well.

Our Toshiba laptops all seem to have AR8171/8175's in them and I don't think I've ever seen one of them push past maybe 200Mbps. No idea why. Fast i5 machines.

Atheros often doesn't supply data sheets for their stuff so driver support is dodgy. There's no driver on FreeNAS for the 8171 for example.

https://bugs.pcbsd.org/issues/3441
 

jgreco

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Okay, I'm going to go back to thinking they aren't supported by freeBSD then. :D

Feel free to think what you want. Me, I still want my IP-over-IrDA ... prolly faster than this stupid Atheros.
 

Baconfenix

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Thank you for your replies, no I haven't made any progress, but it seems to be as I thought.. using Atheros in LAGG seems to be not the best idea.
So I'll just go for a dual Intel NIC. Thank you for your help :)
 
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Why do you want to set up a LAGG with LACP?
 

cyberjock

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I know every Atheros chip I've tried failed to work at all. /shrug
 

Ericloewe

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I'll second (third?) the notion that Atheros is on par with Realtek, probably worse due to it being a bit more rare and thus less studied.
 

jgreco

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I don't know about rare, I've seen a lot of them. For Windows boxes, they normally seem to work better than Realtek. I guess that's not saying much though.
 
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