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.
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. The file /usr/src/sys/i386/conf/LINT will give you the list of network interfaces 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.
To use your network card, you will need to load the proper driver. 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). A module is not available for all network card drivers (ISA cards and cards using the ed(4) driver, for example). Alternatively, you may statically compile the support for your card into your kernel. Check /usr/src/sys/i386/conf/LINT 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 Chapter 9. If your card was detected at boot by your kernel (GENERIC) you do not have to build a new kernel.
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
Note: 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:
UP means that the card is configured and ready.
The card has an Internet (inet) address (in this case 192.168.1.3).
It has a valid subnet mask (netmask; 0xffffff00 is the same as 255.255.255.0).
It has a valid broadcast address (in this case, 192.168.1.255).
The MAC address of the card (ether) is 00:a0:cc:da:da:da
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.
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 adresses 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.
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.
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 let's test the 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.
6.6.3.2.1. Where can I find information about possible trouble I may experience with my network card?
The manual page of the driver is the first piece of documentation to read. The mailing lists archives can also be useful.
6.6.3.2.2. When I try to ping a machine on my LAN, I get this message: ``ping: sendto: Permission denied''.
This means that you do not have permission to send ICMP packets. Check to see if a firewall is running on the machine and if there are any rules blocking ICMP.
6.6.3.2.3. I see a lot of ``watchdog timeout'' messages in the system logs, and when I try to ping a machine on the LAN, I get this message: ``ping: sendto: No route to host''.
The first thing to do is to check your network cable. Many cards require a PCI slot supporting the Bus Mastering. On some old motherboards, only one PCI slot allows it (most of time slot 0). Check the network card and the motherboard documentation to determine if that may be the problem.
6.6.3.2.4. I see a lot of ``device timeout'' messages in the system logs, and my network card does not work.
Having one or two of these messages is sometimes normal with some cards. However, if they persist and the network is not usable, make sure the network cable is plugged in and that there are no IRQ conflicts between the network card and another device (or devices) on the system.
It is difficult to answer to that question. What is your definition of ``poor performance''? Double check everything in your configuration, read the tuning(7) manual page, and try to avoid cheap network cards. Many users have noted that setting the media selection mode to autoselect results in bad performance on some hardware.
You should avoid cheap cards for serious usage. Cheap cards often use buggy chipsets, and most of time do not provide very good performance. Many FreeBSD users like cards using the fxp(4) chipset, however, this does not mean that all other chipsets are bad.
This, and other documents, can be downloaded from ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/doc/.
For questions about FreeBSD, read the
documentation
before contacting <questions@FreeBSD.org>.
For questions about this documentation, e-mail <doc@FreeBSD.org>.