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SFP port LAGG member not working on GS752TPv2 (Defaulting to 100mbps link on native ports)
GS752TPv2 is on latest 6.0.0.45 firmware.
I am using SFP ports 51 and 52 with SFP RJ45 gigabit modules on my GS752TP and one of my two LAGG ports will not link up properly, only ONE of the TWO ports on the NIC will properly negotiatie to 1000 MBPS FULL DUPLEX.
The NIC card is an INTEL PRO/1000 model EXPI9402PT
I have tried different cables, but there is no difference. I have swapped the SFP modules around and used them on the other nic on the card and vice-versa and they both work fine, as do the ports on the switch.
The LAGG mode is LACP.
The NIC card is properly identified as a 1000BaseT model and 'gigabit' model in the router's drivers, but the GS752TP is not autonegotiating the 1000 speed in BOTH ports, it will only do one, so since the SFP modules are gigabit only it is shown as 'link down' aka no link.
Oddly enough when I try the same nic port and cable in a native port on the GS752TP, it will autonegotiate that port to 100MBPS FULL DUPLEX only, but will NOT do gigabit.
I am using SFP ports 51 and 52 with SFP RJ45 gigabit modules on my GS752TP and one of my two LAGG ports will not link up properly, only ONE of the TWO ports on the NIC will properly negotiatie to 1000 MBPS FULL DUPLEX.
Once more for the records: SFP and SFP+ poots can't do any negotation. When plugging a GbE module in an SFP or an SFP+ garage, the Ethernet link must run on Gb - if it's not, e.g. operating on Fast Ethernet only, the link won't come up. You correctly mentiond this later, too!
I have tried different cables, but there is no difference. I have swapped the SFP modules around and used them on the other nic on the card and vice-versa and they both work fine, as do the ports on the switch.
Obviously they don't work fine, as you showed later on...
...The NIC card is properly identified as a 1000BaseT model and 'gigabit' model in the router's drivers, but the GS752TP is not autonegotiating the 1000 speed in BOTH ports, it will only do one, so since the SFP modules are gigabit only it is shown as 'link down' aka no link. ...
Oddly enough when I try the same nic port and cable in a native port on the GS752TP, it will autonegotiate that port to 100MBPS FULL DUPLEX only, but will NOT do gigabit.
That's why the LAG will not come up - a LAG requires links with the same speed and latency.
Reads to me like there is a problem with that specific NIC port, with the drivers, with that router, ... from some time ago I remember having seen that multi-port NIC (with two or four ports) were not properly initialized (not only on FreeBSD) so only the primary port is correctly working - so this sounds familiar. I fear you dig on the wrong end here with Netgear - talk to the pfSense/FreeBSD people.
Time permitting, you might want to ask the makers of pfSense what a LAGG is (in case they say it's LAG group ask why they talk of a LAGG group in thier docs ... interestingly, when it comes to LACP they talk of LAG and LAG group only. Yes, I'm aware that OpenBSD/NetBSD/FreeBSD use lagg[nn] for the device names.
The pfsense help threads I am seeing are claiming that the switch is supposed to set the speed of the port, and that if the nic supports 10/100/1000 then the nic/router will update on its side of the line to that speed of whatever device is connected - or do they have this backwards?
... the switch is supposed to set the speed of the port, and that if the nic supports 10/100/1000 then the nic/router will update on its side of the line to that speed of whatever device is connected
For the standard GbE ports, yes of course, for GbE (and faster) automatic negotiation is mandatory, on both ends (the switch and the NIC on the firewall side). The reason why this might not happen between one of firewall ports and the switch 1000MBase-T ports can be related to the fact that this NIC is not properly initialized.
For the SFP ports - designed for fiber connections - it's a little bit more complex (read: restricted). The SFP module can't do any speed adoption, so it's the SFP garage (slot) which will run on the nominal speed of the SFP module plugged, and for a GbE SFP module this is 1 Gb (and never 100Mb or 10 Mb as in the case where the auto-negotiation [which does still happen between the SFP GbE and the NIC] does not manage to get up to GbE speed - so the SFP "interface" expects Gb, the copper in on 100 Mb and the link will never come up.
You can try to create an Ethernet loop between the two Inhell NIC ports and check the speed of both interfaces.
Again, I've seen several occurences where the Inhell multi-port NIC cards had only the first port enabled and workable, the second (or the other three) are not workable. This is a driver problem on the U**x (e.g. FreeBSD, but it happened on Linux for example, too) side.
