nfe(4) issues

[Tony Holmes]

On +Aug 08, Oliver Fromme wrote:
> dan at danneh.org wrote:
>  > I might be covering old ground here, and I realise that this is resolved
>  > in fbsd7, however I'm after an urgent fix, as I'm unable to wait for fbsd7
>  > to become a release.
>  > I have a rack server, with an nvidia nforce pro 3600 chipset, and the nic
>  > cards use the mcp55 marvell 88e1121 chipset (dual gigabit lan). the nve
>  > that's shipped with 6.2 doesn't recognise it, and have been following
>  > instructions here at
>  > http://www.f.csce.kyushu-u.ac.jp/~shigeaki//software/freebsd-nfe.html to
>  > attempt to get the nfe driver working on fbsd6.2.
> 
> It's probably _much_ easier to add the PCI ID of your MCP55
> to the stock nve(4) driver on your FreeBSD 6 machine.  It
> works -- that's exactly what I did in a similar case, but
> only for the purpose of getting network access so I could
> cvsup to 7-current.  The machine is now happily running 7-
> current with the new nfe(4) driver.
> 
> Basically, you simply copy the device ID from the output
> of "pciconf -lv" and insert it in if_nve.c and if_nvereg.h
> (located in /sys/dev/nve).  I think there's even a PR about
> it.
> 
> However, I recommend you update to 7-current anyway.  It is
> already in code freeze for several weeks (in preparation
> for the release), and it has been stable for me so far.

Let me add a "I concur" to this. I upgaded to 7-current 4 weeks ago for this
very reason and I have been pleased with the stability and performance. I have
enough confidence to deploy into production in the next couple of weeks.

-- 
Tony Holmes

Ph: (416) 993-1219

Founder and Senior Systems Architect
Crosswinds Internet Communications Inc.