Intel Quad NIC not showing up in Web UI - Passthrough to VM for OpnSense

[stehle]

Hi!
I am using Proxmox for some time now, but still a noob trying to learn the basics.
But now i am at a point where i can not proceed without help, and it concerns my PCIe NIC:
It is an Intel PRO/1000 PT Quad NIC, an ultra common one i guess everyone here should know and should be supported by any OS:
https://www.intel.com/content/www/u...s/1000-pt-quad-port-server-adapter-brief.html

I want to use OpnSense in a VM, for which i need to have at least 2 LAN ports. I know i have 2 options to do this:
1. Create 2 bridges, one for each NIC port
2. Passthrough the PCIe NIC to the VM

I would prefer option 1., but i can only see 1 new network device in addition to the motherboard one after i build in the NIC-PCIe-Card:



When i enter "ip addr" i get this:



Why are there not 4 NICs shown in the Web UI? What can i do to change this and use the 4 ports exlusively for the OpnSense VM?
Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[Dunuin]

Maybe you might find this thread intersting:

Neither the EXPI9404PT or the EXPI9404PTBLK will work in the PCIe 2.0 slot unless you have a BIOS that allows you to set the PCIe version to emulate the older 1.0a vers

Also keep in mind that this NIC got a typical power consumption of 12W!!! according to the datasheet. Not sure what you pay in your country for electricity, but here that would cost me additional 42$ or 37€ a year. A newer Intel i350-T4 quadport-Gbit-NIC you get for around 35€ and it even got better features and only needs 5W, so it would save 22€/25$ per year of electricity.
If you need to pay for the electricity bill by yourself, it most of the time doesn't make sense to buy such old hardware.

 

[stehle]

Maybe you might find this thread intersting:


Also keep in mind that this NIC got a typical power consumption of 12W!!! according to the datasheet. Not sure what you pay in your country for electricity, but here that would cost me additional 42$ or 37€ a year. A newer Intel i350-T4 quadport-Gbit-NIC you get for around 35€ and it even got better features and only needs 5W, so it would save 22€/25$ per year of electricity.
If you need to pay for the electricity bill by yourself, it most of the time doesn't make sense to buy such old hardware.

Wow, thanks for the fast reply! Ironically i thought i would save money with the PRO/1000 and bought this one instead of the i350, because i thought only about feature set. Did not consider the electricity and quirks like this PCIE version stuff.
Will buy a used i350 try to get the PRO/1000 to work for now and then upgrade when the i350 arrives in some weeks.
Thanks for your fast answer again!

 

[Dunuin]

When buying a i350-T4 make sure not to buy a fake one. Especially if you buy a used one from china they are most of the time counterfeits.

 

[patch]

try to get the PRO/1000 to work for now

You could try pass through to pfsense that way only one OS needs to recognise it.

 

[stehle]

You could try pass through to pfsense that way only one OS needs to recognise it.

It does not even show up in the list of devices to pass through. Even though i was able to set the PCIE version to V1. I will just bite the bullet and get the i350 T4. With selling the old one for 20€, and paying 50€ for a i350 T4 from a local online store, its pretty cheap to do.
As they say, the one who buys cheap buys twice. Stupid Me.
The i350 even has SR-IOV!!

Thanks to all for helping me, have a great new year!

 

[Dunuin]

There is the i350-T4 and the newer revision i350-T4v2. If I remember right not all versions of the v1 will support SR-IOV.

 

[patch]

It does not even show up in the list of devices to pass through.

Pass through works by passing through an IO group (PCE Device at a particular address).

To see what is in each IO group run the following in a Proxmox shell / command prompt

for d in /sys/kernel/iommu_groups/*/devices/*; do n=${d#*/iommu_groups/*}; n=${n%%/*}; printf 'IOMMU group %s ' "$n"; lspci -nns "${d##*/}"; done

If you have not enabled pass through all peripheral will be in the same IO group.
To enable pass through the procedure differs slightly depending on if you are using

• Intel or AMD processor
• EFI or the Grub bassed bootloader

See

• Proxmox manual section 10.9 PCI(e) Passthrough page 191
• https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Pci_passthrough

Which involves
For EFI edit

nano /etc/kernel/cmdline

For Grub edit

nano /etc/default/grub

For both append quiet intel_iommu=on

For both create the file

nano /etc/modules

Then past the contents
vfio vfio_iommu_type1 vfio_pci vfio_virqfd