Bug 207633

Summary:	bce0: Discard frame w/o leading ethernet header (len 0 pkt len 0) - pfSense 2.2.6 and 2.3 Beta
Product:	Base System	Reporter:	Matt <parwok>
Component:	kern	Assignee:	freebsd-bugs (Nobody) <bugs>
Status:	Closed Not A Bug
Severity:	Affects Only Me	CC:	amd64, parwok
Priority:	---
Version:	10.1-RELEASE
Hardware:	amd64
OS:	Any

Description Matt 2016-03-02 02:21:56 UTC

I recently my physical pfSesne install to a virtual machine. I have tried both pfSense 2.5.6 and 2.6 in kvm and am passing two physical interfaces through, using a Proxmox (debian) host. Each interface is a BCM5709, in a Dell PowerEdge R710.

I have found that in order to work around the issue, I have to disconnect the ethernet cables and allow pfSense to fully boot to the login prompt before reconnecting them, or else all interfaces spam discard frame errors with len 0 and pkt klen 0. Occasionally, even this workaround fails.

This is problematic in the case of a power event, as it means I will need to be physically present for the network to come back up. While I realize I'm thankfully not using this in an enterprise environment, it would be nice to fix this issue if possible.

Original bug on pfSense tracker: https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/5649

Comment 1 Matt 2016-03-02 23:14:30 UTC

I should mention that I think pfSense is based on 10.1, and not 11 as I mistakenly selected.

Comment 2 Matt 2016-03-03 07:08:57 UTC

As of tonight's nightly build this issue seems to have gone away (pfSense snapshot).

Comment 3 Matt 2016-11-26 20:14:18 UTC

I should note that it was a false positive on the fix being related to anything within FreeBSD or pfSense, for the most part:

After using pci-stub on the Linux host for the two NIC's in question, which prevents the host from loading firmware for the cards (previously wasn't possible for a variety of reasons), coupled with the wiki entry below, I seem to have this issue no longer.

https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Tuning_and_Troubleshooting_Network_Cards#Broadcom_bce.284.29_Cards

That saves me buying a dual Intel NIC. I hope this information can help others with similar issues.