Build drivers for ax88179_178a to solve transmit queue timed out?

[mike8822661]

Hello all,

I'm using Proxmox with a mini-pc that has only one on-board Ethernet port, and one USB Ethernet adapter (ducks behind desk). I believe I'm experiencing a somewhat common issue with this adapter, in that it regularly goes down or drops packets. Once in awhile I get the following type of message in my logs:

Aug 10 20:11:04 hypervisor kernel: [516353.372776] NETDEV WATCHDOG: enx0826ae347f93 (ax88179_178a): transmit queue 0 timed out

At that point the adapter goes down, my guest can no longer bring up the WAN, and I have to reboot proxmox to recover. I've written a script to watch the logs and automatically reboot when needed, but this still causes about 2 minutes of downtime at inconvenient times, and doesn't work great with certain conferencing software.

Anyway. I found a post here (https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/a...-proxmox-e-g-use-with-freebsd-opnsense.60879/) where another user claims to have solved the situation by installing drivers from the manufacturer. However, these instructions don't work for me. Even after locating the bzip file manually, I get the following error:

make -C /lib/modules/5.15.30-2-pve/build M=/home/mike/Downloads/ax88179_178a-drivers/AX88179_178A_Linux_Driver_v1.20.0_source modules
make[1]: *** /lib/modules/5.15.30-2-pve/build: No such file or directory.  Stop.
make: *** [Makefile:30: default] Error 2

As of this moment, it seems the drivers are up to v1.20 and I'm using proxmox pve-manager/7.2-3/c743d6c1 with kernel Linux 5.15.30-2-pve #1 SMP PVE 5.15.30-3 (Fri, 22 Apr 2022 18:08:27 +0200).

The big questions: Has anyone built the latest drivers on the latest proxmox? Has anyone an alternative fix to this issue other than "buy better hardware" (money is tight atm) or "turn it down to 100mbps"?

I've been told this issue stems from a Linux kernel optimization enabled recently, that has issues with certain types of devices/drivers.

Thank you in advance for any tips and advice.

 

[LnxBil]

Has anyone an alternative fix to this issue other than "buy better hardware" (money is tight atm) or "turn it down to 100mbps"?

Yes, use VLAN with one ethernet card. You may need a capable switch, but those start at 20€.

The idea is that you divide your network in VLANs one for local and one for WAN and the switch breaks out the one port into as many as you want. I also experienced problems with USB Ethernet cards in the past, so I know your pain.

 

[lyricnz]

Is there a simple doc on how to set up "use VLAN with one ethernet card"? (with a LAN and WAN interface). My box has one intel onboard, and one usb-gigabit-eth, which looks like the same error.

 

[LnxBil]

Is there a simple doc on how to set up "use VLAN with one ethernet card"?

In PVE you just set the ID as a tag in the GUI:



It's more complicated than that on the switch side. You have tagged and untagged ports, etc.

 

[lyricnz]

I tried this last night, but couldn't get it working right, and only succeeded in breaking everything.
I tried on my 8-port switch:
- assign ports 1-3 to VLAN 4001 (DMZ) and port 3 with tagging
- assign ports 3-8 to VLAN 4002 (LAN) and port 3 with tagging
- connect proxmox to port 3
But never got proxmox working in this configuration, and it looked like the DHCP server from my isp modem/router (port 1) was leaking over to the LAN, and hosts were getting leases from there, not from pfsense which runs in proxmox, which needs to span both LANs.

I couldn't seem to delete the VLAN 1, which might explain it?

 

[LnxBil]

The column "untagged ports" is crucial and you have indeed a problem with overlapping VLANs.

I would only create a VLAN for your ISP connection and leave everything else like it is/was. With this setup you just have one port configured specially and all others work like they worked before. On the port to your PVE, you enable the tagged ISP data, so that your PVE will "see" this traffic.

So it should be like this (out of my head):

VLAN ID  Name     Member Ports  Tagged Ports  Untagged Ports
1        Default  2-8                         2-8
4001     DMZ      1             2             1

On port 2 should be your PVE box.

NOTE: You also need to set the 802.1Q PVID Setting accordingling to the "untagged ports" setting

 

[lyricnz]

Thanks for that. I didn't end up persisting with VLANs as I ran out of time.

For now, I bought a different USB-eth card, and it's working perfectly (two NICs, not vlan). Looks like there is/was some issues with the driver for the ax88179_178a device - https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20220727161006.413503984@linuxfoundation.org/

Switched to this (rtl8153 based), and it's working great:

Bus 002 Device 002: ID 2357:0601 TP-Link UE300 10/100/1000 LAN (ethernet mode) [Realtek RTL8153]