Broadcom BCM574xx VLAN problem under FreeBSD 13.2 with bnxt driver

When using 10/25 GBit/s dual port Broadcom network cards with BCM574xx chips, transmission problems occur under FreeBSD 13.2 as well as OPNsense 23.7 with activated VLANs. A patch (released 24.08.2023) solves the problem. Until this patch is available through a Kernel/Driver update, we recommend to stay with OPNsense version 23.1 for corresponding OPNsense firewalls without Business Edition until the patch is included in the next minor release of OPNsense (probably 23.7.4). The OPNsense Business Edition is not affected by the problem as version 23.4 is based on FreeBSD 13.1, and the upcoming version 23.10 (based on FreeBSD 13.2) will include the patch already.

Hardware affected

Affected:

• Broadcom 10/25 GBit/s Dual-Port NICs (BCM574xx Chip)
• Motherboard with BCM574xx chips, e.g. H12SSL-NT

Not affected:

• Broadcom 1 GBit/s NICs
• Broadcom 25 GBit/s Quad-Port NICs (Thor-Chip, BCM575xx)
• Broadcom 100 GBit/s NICs (Thor-Chip, BCM575xx)

Solution

There is a driver update available which solves this problem.

We recommend to stay with OPNsense version 23.1 for corresponding OPNsense firewalls without Business Edition until the final driver update is available.

Further information

• Broadcom P225P driver - vlans no longer work (forum.opnsense.org)
• Bug 272865 - Broadcom P225P driver bnxt(4) - vlans no longer work (was working with 13.1) (bugs.freebsd.org)
• Bug 269133 - bnxt(4): BCM57416 - HWRM_CFA_L2_SET_RX_MASK command returned RESOURCE_ALLOC_ERROR error (bugs.freebsd.org)

References

Author: Werner Fischer Werner Fischer, working in the Knowledge Transfer team at Thomas-Krenn, completed his studies of Computer and Media Security at FH Hagenberg in Austria. He is a regular speaker at many conferences like LinuxTag, OSMC, OSDC, LinuxCon, and author for various IT magazines. In his spare time he enjoys playing the piano and training for a good result at the annual Linz marathon relay.