I now know the reason for the intel network cards failing to initalise
on OpenBSD.
OpenBSD doesn't have a driver for the bridge chipset (PLX) therefore
cannot utilise the LAN ports on board. I have checked the PLX website
and their doesn't appear to be any support for OpenBSD.
Jules Desforges wrote:
I have recently acquired, 3 * Nexcom NSA 1108 units - with the
intention of using them as OpenBSD routers.
Information about the unit can be found here :-
http://www.nexcomuk.co.uk/product/productshow.jsp?iid=13&pid=692
The unit has the following onboard LAN chips :-
PCI-E GbE: Intel. 82571EB
PCI-32 GbE: Intel. 82541PI
both of which are listed as being supported in the em manual page -
despite this OpenBSD is having problems recognising 8 of the nic
ports. The 2 fiber ports always detect fine, the remaining 8 copper
ports issue errors in the dmesg.
I have tried various things including
1) Updating to most recent bios
2) Disabling acpi, apm, usb
3) Disabling hyperthreading in the bios
Whilst I get slightly different results on each test, the 8 copper
nics still do not work. As the dmesg output is quite long I have put
links to them here. The dmesg was carried out on an OpenBSD snapshot
from two days ago.
http://www.kgb.org.ru/nexcom/
Interestingly, all ports work fine in freebsd. I know a hardware
developer at Nexcom in Taiwan who is keep to help and would be willing
to assist OpenBSD developers with hardware documentation.
I have used other Nexcom units with OpenBSD, including the NSA1086 and
DNA840 - both make ideal routing platforms when used with bgp/ospf/
carp.
Thanks,
Jules