# promiscuous interface problem



## pennello (Jun 2, 2010)

I've recently installed FreeBSD 8.0 on an Intel-based Mac Mini to use it as a router for my apartment.

I'm using the internal gigabit ethernet connection to interface with the rest of the apartment, and I've tried both a D-Link DUB-E100 and a Trendnet TU2-ET100 USB ethernet adapter to interface with my cable modem.

The problem is that I can't connect to the Internet unless I enable promiscuous mode on the external interface.

Another issue, potentially related:  Once it's connected, after a sufficient amount of data has passed across the external interface (somewhere in the neighborhood of a gigabyte), it again loses its ability to talk to the outside.  When I try to ping various IPs, I get error messages like "no buffer space available".  A restart (painfully) cures this problem.

Any ideas?  What debug information would be most helpful to report?


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## vrachil (Jun 3, 2010)

I had the same problem with the D-Link adapter, and after a google search, it seemed to be the driver's fault.
The only way i could 'work around' it, was to unplug and plug back the usb adapter. The device got reinitialized, and it started working again.
This was about a month ago, maybe a bit more, and i don't think that the driver got fixed in the meanwhile.


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## pennello (Jun 3, 2010)

Ah, interesting.  I'll try getting a USB ethernet adapter that doesn't use the axe driver.


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## pennello (Jun 3, 2010)

vrachil said:
			
		

> The only way i could 'work around' it, was to unplug and plug back the usb adapter.


Just FYI, I learned from this thread that you can reset the USB device without having to physically unplug it by using usbconfig:


```
usbconfig -u busnum -a devaddr reset
```

I've got that set up on a cron job until my new non-axe adapter arrives.


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## vrachil (Jun 7, 2010)

hmmm. That's useful. Though i no longer use that adapter. (too buggy)

The only problem with the cron job is that the device failed in a random way.
Sometimes it could last a couple of days before failing, and sometimes it was failing every 2-5 mins.


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## pennello (Jun 7, 2010)

vrachil said:
			
		

> The only problem with the cron job is that the device failed in a random way.
> Sometimes it could last a couple of days before failing, and sometimes it was failing every 2-5 mins.



A fair point.

I've just set mine to reset every 30 minutes, and am quasi-willing to tolerate at most 30 minutes of downtime here and there if it fails soon after a reset (at least, willing to tolerate it until my new NIC arrives ).

Although if I queue up a big torrent, for example, then I know to have it reset more frequently, as its failure interval seems to be a function of the amount of data going across the interface, and not random, as you experienced.


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## pennello (Jun 10, 2010)

I bought a Linksys USB100TX, which uses the aue driver, and all issues were resolved.  No more having to use promiscuous mode to talk to the outside, and no more connection dying after enough traffic across the interface.

That axe driver really ought to be fixed. :\


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## vrachil (Jun 13, 2010)

pennello said:
			
		

> I bought a Linksys USB100TX, which uses the aue driver, and all issues were resolved.



Good to know. Next time i have to use one of them i will keep it in mind.


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