Problems with WOL and i217 NIC

[ch_mueller83]

Hey everybody,

I have a problem with my FreeNAS system at home. I installed the FreeNAS 9.1.1-RELEASE (64-Bit) Disk-Image on a USB Disk.
At first, everything worked fine with the installation and configuration.
But to get a bit further I want to use WOL (Wake on LAN).
I'm using the ASUS H87i-Plus with an i217 NIC (which should support WOL).
I already setup all what is needed in the bios (or well... I guess I did setup everything that is needed) ;).

The problem now is. When my system gets up my "em0" does not support WOL.
If I run the command "ifconfig -m em0" the following is shown:
em0: flags=8943<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,PROMISC,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
options=40098<VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,VLAN_HWTSO>
capabilities=5019b<RXCSUM,TXCSUM,VLAN_MTU,VLAN_HWTAGGING,VLAN_HWCSUM,TSO4,VLAN_HWFILTER,VLAN_HWTSO>
ether ac:22:0b:4d:be:e4
inet 192.168.0.200 netmask 0xffffff00 broadcast 192.168.0.255
inet6 fe80::ae22:bff:fe4d:bee4%em0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x2
nd6 options=29<PERFORMNUD,IFDISABLED,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
media: Ethernet autoselect (1000baseT <full-duplex>)
status: active
supported media:
media autoselect
media 1000baseT
media 1000baseT mediaopt full-duplex
media 100baseTX mediaopt full-duplex
media 100baseTX
media 10baseT/UTP mediaopt full-duplex
media 10baseT/UTP

There is no WOL under options, which should be there, if it is supported.

My first guess was that the em0 drivers are maybe outdated.
The version for em driver in FreeNAS 9.1.1 is 7.3.7 (as far as I could see in the FreeBSD source folder "FreeBSD/src/sys/dev/e1000/if_em.c" em_driver_version[] = "7.3.7" when I try to build the v9.1.1 by myself)
The latest driver from Intel is v7.3.8, but does not have a significant difference to the v7.3.7 driver.
So in my opinion WOL should work as well on the v7.3.7 driver.

To tryout the WOL functions I found a how-to where it is said to use "shutdown -p now" to shutdown the FreeNAS. And after that the system should come up when sending a WOL Magic Packet.

My question now is. Can anybody tell me, if he already could use WOL with the somehow new NIC i217?
Or has anyone an idea of what I maybe did wrong?

Thanks for any help,
Greetings,
Christian

 

[graysky]

I just found this post by googling (keywords: H87I wol) for information about an issue I am experiencing with this motherboard. So I took a sec to register and take a crack at answering your question. To enable WOL, there is an option in the BIOS that needs to be enabled: Onboard>APM>Power on by PCIE which is defaulted to disabled. Have a look at your value and see if that solves your problem.

...I have an related issue for me, WOL works, but when I shutdown the machine, sometimes (about 25 % of the time), it spontaneously turns itself back on several sec after it shutdown off! I am curious to see what your experience is with WOL and this motherboard. BIOS version for me is current: 0904.

 

[ch_mueller83]

Hey graysky,
thanks for your response.
I've been busy the last days but finally could check the BIOS settings. Unfortunately I already had set the property for Onboard>APM>Power on by PCIE. I still dont get the option for WOL at "ifconfig -m em0".
How do you turn off your NAS? I am using "shutdown -p now" but I m not sure if this is the correct command to let the NAS wake up later.

 

[graysky]

Perhaps it is something lacking in the BSD kernel? I using the linux kernel 3.12.4 on Arch Linux. Not too sure how to advise you. I power down my box with "shutdown -h now" and as long as that BIOS option is set, WOL works. Have you observed the issue I mentioned above when the box does not shut down and stay shutdown?

 

[cyberjock]

I thought that WOL for FreeNAS wasn't working.

We get alot of people asking about WOL, but either WOL isn't listed as supported(driver not written to support it?) or it does support it but doesn't actually work no matter what the server admin does.

If you buy recommended hardware as found in our stickies you'll end up buying a server grade board that comes with IPMI. That does let you startup the server regardless of WOL support.

Just one of many reasons why we shy against consumer stuff like the Asus H87i-Plus. For example, you also have audio hardware on your board that will forever suck electricity while your server is on(no.. its not powered off if you disable it in the BIOS). ASUS also adds lots of their own proprietary hardware features hoping to entice your average home user to buy their product. How does that stuff interact with FreeBSD? Nobody knows. But you can bet dollars to donuts its not supported and the OS will have to deal with whatever problems that hardware may cause.

 

[graysky]

Update - Latest BIOS 1005 does not fix this problem and 14 emails between myself and the people at Asus who barely speak English have not been fruitful.

 

[graysky]

Booting into windows 7 and then shutting down from there does not exhibit this behavior. It seems to be something unique to Linux...

 

[graysky]

An update: this is a BIOS bug but there is a work-around. I have been testing several systems (Z77 and H97-based) after I disabled all references to 'xHCI' as it pertains to USB settings[1]. I also enabled wake on keyboard[2]. And finally, I disabled EuP 2013 which affects wattage in power off mode. For over 2 months now, I haven't observed an unintentional wake-up with 'wake on PCIe' enabled in the BIOS.

1a. https://communities.intel.com/message/168708
1b. https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/0adf7a085fae52b18202a95722fc05d644fa7a42
2. http://serverfault.com/questions/349898/wake-on-lan-with-ubuntu-causing-constant-reboots