# are 2gb nics supported?



## gregh (Sep 17, 2021)

Newbie here and getting ready to install for first But is there  a list of supported nic cards? I have a 2gb network in my house and I need a buy a new nic for a workstation  I am building and need to know what 2gb nics are support? Can i use any nic that supports Linux or is there  a way to see if BSD supports a nic?
Greg


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## SirDice (Sep 17, 2021)

As far as I know there are no 2Gbps cards supported at the moment. There's work being done to get the Intel 2.5Gbps cards working but it's not in any of the -RELEASE versions.

For the moment your best bet is getting an Intel PRO/1000 card. It's not expensive, performs really well and has good support.


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## sko (Sep 17, 2021)

As SirDice pointed out, there are only 2.5GBit NICs that actually were long dead - or better say: never lived because 10G was already there and cheap, but now they seem to reappear on some desktop/gaming gear. I actually didn't know there were even 2.5GBit PCIe NICs available; I only ever saw those as onboard NICs and I would never ever buy one of those dead births on purpose - go for 10GBit, this is what everybody agreed on as the next step up from 1GBit and hardware is widely available, cheap and well supported. In fact 2.5/5GBit actually only is a crippled variation of the 10GBASE-T standard to make it work on really old cabling (cat5) that should have been replaced 10 years ago...

If you absolutely have to use a 2.5G NIC (and throw it away in 2-3 years because it is again obsolete...) there is ongoing work to support the various Intel I229 variants, which are already working in the development branch (CURRENT) and IIRC patches for 13.0-STABLE are also already there. If you search for that chipset on the forum there should be several threads about the current state and how to apply the patches.

OR you can get e.g. one of the later Intel 500 series NICs (e.g. X550) which are 10GBit but also support lower speeds (5/2.5/1Gbit). These are supported by the ixgbe driver and the 500 chipsets have been around for quite a while and proven to be reliable workhorses.


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## diizzy (Sep 17, 2021)

I'm going to assume that you're refering to 2.5Gbit Ethernet and Intel's I225-V controller is supported however you need to run 13-STABLE or 14-CURRENT. 
Realtek RTL8156 is also supported to some extent at least





						if_ure.c « net « usb « dev « sys - src - FreeBSD source tree
					






					cgit.freebsd.org


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## gregh (Sep 17, 2021)

I am re using a older HP elate desktop pc and will use it as a opnsense or pfsense firewall "server" running on top of freeBSD OS. I am running 2gb unmanaged switches for the house to just get extra throughout.. 10g is still to much for a home network and still pricey compare to jumping to 2gb from 1gb. I am mostly a windows person and know enough Unix/Linux get frustrated  so hoping I can do this.


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## SirDice (Sep 17, 2021)

gregh said:


> will use it as a opnsense or pfsense firewall "server" running on top of freeBSD OS.


OPNsense or pfSense don't run "on top of" FreeBSD. They're completely reworked and customized _derivatives_. Neither derivative (or any other FreeBSD derivative) is supported here.

GhostBSD, pfSense, TrueNAS, and all other FreeBSD Derivatives


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## gregh (Sep 17, 2021)

SirDice said:


> OPNsense or pfSense don't run "on top of" FreeBSD. They're completely reworked and customized _derivatives_. Neither derivative (or any other FreeBSD derivative) is supported here.
> 
> GhostBSD, pfSense, TrueNAS, and all other FreeBSD Derivatives


I understand that, my question had nothing do with either of those


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## gregh (Oct 19, 2021)

sko said:


> As SirDice pointed out, there are only 2.5GBit NICs that actually were long dead - or better say: never lived because 10G was already there and cheap, but now they seem to reappear on some desktop/gaming gear. I actually didn't know there were even 2.5GBit PCIe NICs available; I only ever saw those as onboard NICs and I would never ever buy one of those dead births on purpose - go for 10GBit, this is what everybody agreed on as the next step up from 1GBit and hardware is widely available, cheap and well supported. In fact 2.5/5GBit actually only is a crippled variation of the 10GBASE-T standard to make it work on really old cabling (cat5) that should have been replaced 10 years ago...
> 
> If you absolutely have to use a 2.5G NIC (and throw it away in 2-3 years because it is again obsolete...) there is ongoing work to support the various Intel I229 variants, which are already working in the development branch (CURRENT) and IIRC patches for 13.0-STABLE are also already there. If you search for that chipset on the forum there should be several threads about the current state and how to apply the patches.
> 
> OR you can get e.g. one of the later Intel 500 series NICs (e.g. X550) which are 10GBit but also support lower speeds (5/2.5/1Gbit). These are supported by the ixgbe driver and the 500 chipsets have been around for quite a while and proven to be reliable workhorses.


do you have any examples of the intel 500 series nics (X550) that is supported? I have been scanning this board and the hardware list and just cant seem to find one.  Thanks in advance for helping this newbie.


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## sko (Oct 19, 2021)

gregh said:


> do you have any examples of the intel 500 series nics (X550) that is supported? I have been scanning this board and the hardware list and just cant seem to find one.  Thanks in advance for helping this newbie.



X510, X520, X530, X540 - all of them, take your pick - they are all supported by the ixgbe driver (but only the X550 supports lower speeds). The newer X700 chipsets in their various variants are supported by the ixl driver.
As said: 10GBit is/was the agreed upon "new lowest" standard when those crippled 2.5GBit NICs showed up; hence all 10GBit chipsets (at least from the "big vendors") are very well supported.


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## gregh (Oct 20, 2021)

sko said:


> X510, X520, X530, X540 - all of them, take your pick - they are all supported by the ixgbe driver (but only the X550 supports lower speeds). The newer X700 chipsets in their various variants are supported by the ixl driver.
> As said: 10GBit is/was the agreed upon "new lowest" standard when those crippled 2.5GBit NICs showed up; hence all 10GBit chipsets (at least from the "big vendors") are very well supported.


thank you for taking the time to help.


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## sko (Nov 9, 2021)

OpenBSD has added an igc driver for Intel 2.5Gb controllers: https://marc.info/?l=openbsd-cvs&m=163569200020541&w=2 https://man.openbsd.org/igc.4

If those weird controllers are really getting more common on consumer hardware this might be a good start/source for porting efforts?


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## diizzy (Nov 9, 2021)

Support is already in 13-STABLE and 14-CURRENT


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## sko (Nov 9, 2021)

Thanks for the info, I haven't followed this topic that closely; just stumbled over the info about the OpenBSD commit...


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