11.8. Setting Up Network Interface Cards
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## 11.8. Setting Up Network Interface Cards

Contributed by Marc Fonvieille.

Nowadays we can not think about a computer without thinking about a network connection. Adding and configuring a network card is a common task for any FreeBSD administrator.

### 11.8.1. Locating the Correct Driver

Before you begin, you should know the model of the card you have, the chip it uses, and whether it is a PCI or ISA card. FreeBSD supports a wide variety of both PCI and ISA cards. Check the Hardware Compatibility List for your release to see if your card is supported.

Once you are sure your card is supported, you need to determine the proper driver for the card. `/usr/src/sys/conf/NOTES` and `/usr/src/sys/arch/conf/NOTES` will give you the list of network interface drivers with some information about the supported chipsets/cards. If you have doubts about which driver is the correct one, read the manual page of the driver. The manual page will give you more information about the supported hardware and even the possible problems that could occur.

If you own a common card, most of the time you will not have to look very hard for a driver. Drivers for common network cards are present in the `GENERIC` kernel, so your card should show up during boot, like so:

    dc0: <82c169 PNIC 10/100BaseTX> port 0xa000-0xa0ff mem 0xd3800000-0xd38
    000ff irq 15 at device 11.0 on pci0
    dc0: Ethernet address: 00:a0:cc:da:da:da
    miibus0: <MII bus> on dc0
    ukphy0: <Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface> on miibus0
    ukphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto
    dc1: <82c169 PNIC 10/100BaseTX> port 0x9800-0x98ff mem 0xd3000000-0xd30
    000ff irq 11 at device 12.0 on pci0
    dc1: Ethernet address: 00:a0:cc:da:da:db
    miibus1: <MII bus> on dc1
    ukphy1: <Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface> on miibus1
    ukphy1:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto

In this example, we see that two cards using the dc(4) driver are present on the system.

If the driver for your NIC is not present in `GENERIC`, you will need to load the proper driver to use your NIC. This may be accomplished in one of two ways:

- The easiest way is to simply load a kernel module for your network card with kldload(8), or automatically at boot time by adding the appropriate line to the file `/boot/loader.conf`. Not all NIC drivers are available as modules; notable examples of devices for which modules do not exist are ISA cards.

- Alternatively, you may statically compile the support for your card into your kernel. Check `/usr/src/sys/conf/NOTES`, `/usr/src/sys/arch/conf/NOTES` and the manual page of the driver to know what to add in your kernel configuration file. For more information about recompiling your kernel, please see Rozdział 8, Konfiguracja jądra FreeBSD. If your card was detected at boot by your kernel (`GENERIC`) you do not have to build a new kernel.

#### 11.8.1.1. Using Windows(R) NDIS Drivers

Unfortunately, there are still many vendors that do not provide schematics for their drivers to the open source community because they regard such information as trade secrets. Consequently, the developers of FreeBSD and other operating systems are left two choices: develop the drivers by a long and pain-staking process of reverse engineering or using the existing driver binaries available for the Microsoft(R) Windows(R) platforms. Most developers, including those involved with FreeBSD, have taken the latter approach.

Thanks to the contributions of Bill Paul (wpaul), as of FreeBSD 5.3-RELEASE there is "native" support for the Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS). The FreeBSD NDISulator (otherwise known as Project Evil) takes a Windows(R) driver binary and basically tricks it into thinking it is running on Windows(R). Because the ndis(4) driver is using a Windows(R) binary, it is only usable on i386TM and amd64 systems.

### Uwaga:

The ndis(4) driver is designed to support mainly PCI, CardBus and PCMCIA devices, USB devices are not yet supported.

In order to use the NDISulator, you need three things:

1. Kernel sources

2. Windows(R) XP driver binary (`.SYS` extension)

3. Windows(R) XP driver configuration file (`.INF` extension)

Locate the files for your specific card. Generally, they can be found on the included CDs or at the vendors' websites. In the following examples, we will use `W32DRIVER.SYS` and `W32DRIVER.INF`.

### Uwaga:

You can not use a Windows(R)/i386 driver with FreeBSD/amd64, you must get a Windows(R)/amd64 driver to make it work properly.

The next step is to compile the driver binary into a loadable kernel module. To accomplish this, as `root`, use ndisgen(8):

    # ndisgen /path/to/W32DRIVER.INF /path/to/W32DRIVER.SYS

The ndisgen(8) utility is interactive and will prompt for any extra information it requires; it will produce a kernel module in the current directory which can be loaded as follows:

    # kldload ./W32DRIVER.ko

In addition to the generated kernel module, you must load the `ndis.ko` and `if_ndis.ko` modules. This should be automatically done when you load any module that depends on ndis(4). If you want to load them manually, use the following commands:

    # kldload ndis
    # kldload if_ndis

The first command loads the NDIS miniport driver wrapper, the second loads the actual network interface.

Now, check dmesg(8) to see if there were any errors loading. If all went well, you should get output resembling the following:

    ndis0: <Wireless-G PCI Adapter> mem 0xf4100000-0xf4101fff irq 3 at device 8.0 on pci1
    ndis0: NDIS API version: 5.0
    ndis0: Ethernet address: 0a:b1:2c:d3:4e:f5
    ndis0: 11b rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps
    ndis0: 11g rates: 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps

From here you can treat the `ndis0` device like any other network interface (e.g., `dc0`).

You can configure the system to load the NDIS modules at boot time in the same way as with any other module. First, copy the generated module, `W32DRIVER.ko`, to the `/boot/modules` directory. Then, add the following line to `/boot/loader.conf`:

    W32DRIVER_load="YES"

### 11.8.2. Configuring the Network Card

Once the right driver is loaded for the network card, the card needs to be configured. As with many other things, the network card may have been configured at installation time by sysinstall.

To display the configuration for the network interfaces on your system, enter the following command:

    % ifconfig
    dc0: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
            inet 192.168.1.3 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.1.255
            ether 00:a0:cc:da:da:da
            media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)
            status: active
    dc1: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
            inet 10.0.0.1 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 10.0.0.255
            ether 00:a0:cc:da:da:db
            media: Ethernet 10baseT/UTP
            status: no carrier
    lp0: flags=8810<POINTOPOINT,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    lo0: flags=8049<UP,LOOPBACK,RUNNING,MULTICAST> mtu 16384
            inet 127.0.0.1 netmask 0xff000000
    tun0: flags=8010<POINTOPOINT,MULTICAST> mtu 1500

### Uwaga:

Old versions of FreeBSD may require the `-a` option following ifconfig(8), for more details about the correct syntax of ifconfig(8), please refer to the manual page. Note also that entries concerning IPv6 (`inet6` etc.) were omitted in this example.

In this example, the following devices were displayed:

- `dc0`: The first Ethernet interface

- `dc1`: The second Ethernet interface

- `lp0`: The parallel port interface

- `lo0`: The loopback device

- `tun0`: The tunnel device used by ppp

FreeBSD uses the driver name followed by the order in which one the card is detected at the kernel boot to name the network card. For example `sis2` would be the third network card on the system using the sis(4) driver.

In this example, the `dc0` device is up and running. The key indicators are:

1. `UP` means that the card is configured and ready.

2. The card has an Internet (`inet`) address (in this case `192.168.1.3`).

3. It has a valid subnet mask (`netmask`; `0xffffff00` is the same as `255.255.255.0`).

4. It has a valid broadcast address (in this case, `192.168.1.255`).

5. The MAC address of the card (`ether`) is `00:a0:cc:da:da:da`

6. The physical media selection is on autoselection mode (`media: Ethernet autoselect (100baseTX <full-duplex>)`). We see that `dc1` was configured to run with `10baseT/UTP` media. For more information on available media types for a driver, please refer to its manual page.

7. The status of the link (`status`) is `active`, i.e. the carrier is detected. For `dc1`, we see `status: no carrier`. This is normal when an Ethernet cable is not plugged into the card.

If the ifconfig(8) output had shown something similar to:

    dc0: flags=8843<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500
    	        ether 00:a0:cc:da:da:da

it would indicate the card has not been configured.

To configure your card, you need `root` privileges. The network card configuration can be done from the command line with ifconfig(8) but you would have to do it after each reboot of the system. The file `/etc/rc.conf` is where to add the network card's configuration.

Open `/etc/rc.conf` in your favorite editor. You need to add a line for each network card present on the system, for example in our case, we added these lines:

    ifconfig_dc0="inet 192.168.1.3 netmask 255.255.255.0"
    ifconfig_dc1="inet 10.0.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0 media 10baseT/UTP"

You have to replace `dc0`, `dc1`, and so on, with the correct device for your cards, and the addresses with the proper ones. You should read the card driver and ifconfig(8) manual pages for more details about the allowed options and also rc.conf(5) manual page for more information on the syntax of `/etc/rc.conf`.

If you configured the network during installation, some lines about the network card(s) may be already present. Double check `/etc/rc.conf` before adding any lines.

You will also have to edit the file `/etc/hosts` to add the names and the IP addresses of various machines of the LAN, if they are not already there. For more information please refer to hosts(5) and to `/usr/share/examples/etc/hosts`.

### 11.8.3. Testing and Troubleshooting

Once you have made the necessary changes in `/etc/rc.conf`, you should reboot your system. This will allow the change(s) to the interface(s) to be applied, and verify that the system restarts without any configuration errors.

Once the system has been rebooted, you should test the network interfaces.

#### 11.8.3.1. Testing the Ethernet Card

To verify that an Ethernet card is configured correctly, you have to try two things. First, ping the interface itself, and then ping another machine on the LAN.

First test the local interface:

    % ping -c5 192.168.1.3
    PING 192.168.1.3 (192.168.1.3): 56 data bytes
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.3: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.082 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.3: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.074 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.3: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.076 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.3: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.108 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.3: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.076 ms

    --- 192.168.1.3 ping statistics ---
    5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
    round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.074/0.083/0.108/0.013 ms

Now we have to ping another machine on the LAN:

    % ping -c5 192.168.1.2
    PING 192.168.1.2 (192.168.1.2): 56 data bytes
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.2: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.726 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.766 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.700 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.2: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.747 ms
    64 bytes from 192.168.1.2: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.704 ms

    --- 192.168.1.2 ping statistics ---
    5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
    round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.700/0.729/0.766/0.025 ms

You could also use the machine name instead of `192.168.1.2` if you have set up the `/etc/hosts` file.

#### 11.8.3.2. Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting hardware and software configurations is always a pain, and a pain which can be alleviated by checking the simple things first. Is your network cable plugged in? Have you properly configured the network services? Did you configure the firewall correctly? Is the card you are using supported by FreeBSD? Always check the hardware notes before sending off a bug report. Update your version of FreeBSD to the latest STABLE version. Check the mailing list archives, or perhaps search the Internet.

If the card works, yet performance is poor, it would be worthwhile to read over the tuning(7) manual page. You can also check the network configuration as incorrect network settings can cause slow connections.

Some users experience one or two device timeout messages, which is normal for some cards. If they continue, or are bothersome, you may wish to be sure the device is not conflicting with another device. Double check the cable connections. Perhaps you may just need to get another card.

At times, users see a few watchdog timeout errors. The first thing to do here is to check your network cable. Many cards require a PCI slot which supports Bus Mastering. On some old motherboards, only one PCI slot allows it (usually slot 0). Check the network card and the motherboard documentation to determine if that may be the problem.

No route to host messages occur if the system is unable to route a packet to the destination host. This can happen if no default route is specified, or if a cable is unplugged. Check the output of `netstat -rn` and make sure there is a valid route to the host you are trying to reach. If there is not, read on to Rozdział 27, Advanced Networking.

ping: sendto: Permission denied error messages are often caused by a misconfigured firewall. If `ipfw` is enabled in the kernel but no rules have been defined, then the default policy is to deny all traffic, even ping requests! Read on to Rozdział 26, Firewalls for more information.

Sometimes performance of the card is poor, or below average. In these cases it is best to set the media selection mode from `autoselect` to the correct media selection. While this usually works for most hardware, it may not resolve this issue for everyone. Again, check all the network settings, and read over the tuning(7) manual page.

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