Intel 82598EB twinax cables

[Mark Kane]

On 2018-03-20 16:12, Dean E. Weimer wrote:
> I am trying to utilize an old Dell R710 server that used to be in our
> ESX cluster. To replace an even older FreeBSD server I have been
> running. Because it's pretty stupid to throw massively better system
> in the recycle pile while keeping the slower system online.
> 
> The problem I have is that the new server has 10G Ethernet adapters
> connected with Cisco Twinax Cables.
> 
> Adapters are Intel 8259EB 10Gigabit AF Dual Port Adapters
> 
> We have Cisco Twinax Cables connecting them to an Avaya VSP 7000 series 
> switch
> 
> However I have been unable to get the interfaces to show any status
> other than no carrier. I have tried everything including building a
> custom kernel without the if_ix device and compiling the latest
> version from Intel and installing that.
> 
> I have done an up command on the interfaces, tried setting an IP, but
> nothing changes the status. Am I missing something or is the FreeBSD
> Driver just not compatible with these Twinax Cables? The cards of
> course were used with these cables on VMWare?
> 
> Here is the output from some commands below, there maybe some errors I
> can't copy and past from the remote kvm console, so I had to type this
> from reading the screen. this is just the first of the 4 interfaces.
> 
> dmesg:
> ix0: <Intel(R) PRO/10GbE PCI-Express Network Driver, Version - 3.2.17>
> Port 0xccc0-0ccdf mem
> 0xdeb40000-0xdeb5ffff,0xdeb80000-0xdebbffff,0xdeb38000-0xdeb3fff irq
> 47 at device 0.0 on pci11
> ix0: Using MSI-X interrupts with 9 vectors
> ix0: Ethernet address: 00:00:c9:85:33:22
> ix0: PCI Express Bus: Speed 2.5GT/s Width x8
> 
> pciconf -lv:
> ix0 at pci0:11:0:0:   class=0x020000 card=0xe41010df chip=0x10c68086
> rev=0x01 hdr=0x00
>   vendor   = 'Intel Corporation'
>   device   = '82598EV 10-Gigabit AF Dual Port Network Connection'
>   class    = 'network'
>   subclass = 'ethernet'
> 
> ifconfig -v ix0
> ix0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> METRIC 0 MTU 
> 9000
> 
> options=e407bb<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN,VLAN_HWTAGGING,JUMBO_MTU,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,TSO6,LRO,VLAN_HWTSO,RXCSUM_IPV6,TXCSUM_IPV6>
>   ether 00:00:c9:85:33:22
>   hwaddr 00:00:c9:85:33:22
>   nd6 options=29<PREFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
>   media: Ethernet autoselect
>   status: no carrier

I've never tried with twinax cables but remember going down a similar 
path with an Intel 82599ES card and the included multimode optics. In 
the end, the ix driver in GENERIC plus "hw.ix.unsupported_sfp=1" in 
/boot/loader.conf allowed both ports to link correctly.

Not positive if that's it here but hope that helps.