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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/pr...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

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.

On Mar 13, 4:09 pm, rippy <jules.desfor...@gmail.com> 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/pr...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