What kind of NIC do I have

[dlobel]

Hi there,

I have a HP prodesk 400 G5 mini running Truenas version TrueNAS-12.0-U2.1. According to the HP website I have a Realtek RTL8111HSH-CG GbE NIC. But while installing Ubuntu on a VM onder Truenas it stated that I have a intel 82585 NIC. So i'm confused what kind of NIC I have. Is there a simple command to check that?

I'm experiencing slow network traffic writing to Truenas. I have a 1000mbit network but according to iperf my max performance is 150mbit/s.
because the HP machine is a mini (NUC type), installing another NIC isn't possible.

 

[ChrisRJ]

You should check what TrueNAS reports as your NIC. In general the NIC that a VM reports to an OS running inside is chosen by the VM software and independent from the actual NIC.

 

[Patrick M. Hausen]

If you run VMs disable hardware offloading.

 

[jgreco]

Hi there,

I have a HP prodesk 400 G5 mini running Truenas version TrueNAS-12.0-U2.1. According to the HP website I have a Realtek RTL8111HSH-CG GbE NIC. But while installing Ubuntu on a VM onder Truenas it stated that I have a intel 82585 NIC. So i'm confused what kind of NIC I have. Is there a simple command to check that?

I'm experiencing slow network traffic writing to Truenas. I have a 1000mbit network but according to iperf my max performance is 150mbit/s.
because the HP machine is a mini (NUC type), installing another NIC isn't possible.

You have a Realtek in there. If you look with "ifconfig" you will find your ethernet is an "re0", and the 8111 is a highly problematic beast. Sometimes they work, more often, not.

As @ChrisRJ said, the type of ethernet presented as virtual hardware to the guest VM is irrelevant; it is VIRTUAL hardware being emulated by FreeNAS/TrueNAS for the convenience of the guest. The FreeNAS/TrueNAS host itself still has to push the data out through the cruddy Realtek.

There probably aren't any happy solutions for you.

It is slightly within the realm of possibility that you might be able to make it work better if you can figure out if there are any tweaks that impact the poor behaviour.

The Realtek is so bad that we normally just tell people to go buy an Intel CT Desktop adapter, which usually brings joy to their faces after failing to figure out any tweaks to help their impaired ethernet adapter. But, mini PC.

Your best option is probably to see if you can research what the best USB-based ethernet dongles are, and try that. I am fairly certain you can find one that outdoes that Realtek, but this is not a recommended configuration either. Just a "lesser evil."

 

[dlobel]

Hi, thanks for you replies! Hardware offloading was already disabled.

The ifconfig gives the following output:

re0: flags=8943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
description: Network interface
options=82098<VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,WOL_MAGIC,LINKSTATE>
ether e8:d8:d1:54:1d:6b

So this means the NIC is Realtec.

> Your best option is probably to see if you can research what the best USB-based ethernet dongles are, and try that. I am fairly certain you can
> find one that outdoes that Realtek, but this is not a recommended configuration either. Just a "lesser evil."

Any suggestions?