Unfortunately, there are still many vendors that do not provide schematics for their drivers to the open source community because they regard such information as trade secrets. Consequently, the developers of FreeBSD and other operating systems are left with two choices: develop the drivers by a long and pain-staking process of reverse engineering or using the existing driver binaries available for Microsoft® Windows® platforms.

FreeBSD provides “native” support for the Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS). It includes ndisgen(8) which can be used to convert a Windows® XP driver into a format that can be used on FreeBSD. As the ndis(4) driver uses a Windows® XP binary, it only runs on i386™ and amd64 systems. PCI, CardBus, PCMCIA, and USB devices are supported.

To use ndisgen(8), three things are needed:

Download the .SYS and .INF files for the specific NIC. Generally, these can be found on the driver CD or at the vendor's website. The following examples use W32DRIVER.SYS and W32DRIVER.INF.

The driver bit width must match the version of FreeBSD. For FreeBSD/i386, use a Windows® 32-bit driver. For FreeBSD/amd64, a Windows® 64-bit driver is needed.

The next step is to compile the driver binary into a loadable kernel module. As root, use ndisgen(8):

# ndisgen /path/to/W32DRIVER.INF /path/to/W32DRIVER.SYS

This command is interactive and prompts for any extra information it requires. A new kernel module will be generated in the current directory. Use kldload(8) to load the new module:

# kldload ./W32DRIVER_SYS.ko

In addition to the generated kernel module, the ndis.ko and if_ndis.ko modules must be loaded. This should happen automatically when any module that depends on ndis(4) is loaded. If not, load them manually, using the following commands:

# kldload ndis
# kldload if_ndis

The first command loads the ndis(4) miniport driver wrapper and the second loads the generated NIC driver.

Check dmesg(8) to see if there were any load errors. If all went well, the output should be similar to the following:

ndis0: <Wireless-G PCI Adapter> mem 0xf4100000-0xf4101fff irq 3 at device 8.0 on pci1
ndis0: NDIS API version: 5.0
ndis0: Ethernet address: 0a:b1:2c:d3:4e:f5
ndis0: 11b rates: 1Mbps 2Mbps 5.5Mbps 11Mbps
ndis0: 11g rates: 6Mbps 9Mbps 12Mbps 18Mbps 36Mbps 48Mbps 54Mbps

From here, ndis0 can be configured like any other NIC.

To configure the system to load the ndis(4) modules at boot time, copy the generated module, W32DRIVER_SYS.ko, to /boot/modules. Then, add the following line to /boot/loader.conf:

W32DRIVER_SYS_load="YES"

To verify that an Ethernet card is configured correctly, ping(8) the interface itself, and then ping(8) another machine on the LAN:

% ping -c5 192.168.1.3
PING 192.168.1.3 (192.168.1.3): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.1.3: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.082 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.3: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.074 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.3: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.076 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.3: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.108 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.3: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.076 ms

--- 192.168.1.3 ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.074/0.083/0.108/0.013 ms

% ping -c5 192.168.1.2
PING 192.168.1.2 (192.168.1.2): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 192.168.1.2: icmp_seq=0 ttl=64 time=0.726 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.2: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.766 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.2: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.700 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.2: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.747 ms
64 bytes from 192.168.1.2: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.704 ms

--- 192.168.1.2 ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received, 0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 0.700/0.729/0.766/0.025 ms

To test network resolution, use the host name instead of the IP address. If there is no DNS server on the network, /etc/hosts must first be configured. To this purpose, edit /etc/hosts to add the names and IP addresses of the hosts on the LAN, if they are not already there. For more information, refer to hosts(5) and to /usr/share/examples/etc/hosts.

When troubleshooting hardware and software configurations, check the simple things first. Is the network cable plugged in? Are the network services properly configured? Is the firewall configured correctly? Is the NIC supported by FreeBSD? Before sending a bug report, always check the Hardware Notes, update the version of FreeBSD to the latest STABLE version, check the mailing list archives, and search the Internet.

If the card works, yet performance is poor, read through tuning(7). Also, check the network configuration as incorrect network settings can cause slow connections.

Some users experience one or two device timeout messages, which is normal for some cards. If they continue, or are bothersome, determine if the device is conflicting with another device. Double check the cable connections. Consider trying another card.

To resolve watchdog timeout errors, first check the network cable. Many cards require a PCI slot which supports bus mastering. On some old motherboards, only one PCI slot allows it, usually slot 0. Check the NIC and the motherboard documentation to determine if that may be the problem.

No route to host messages occur if the system is unable to route a packet to the destination host. This can happen if no default route is specified or if a cable is unplugged. Check the output of netstat -rn and make sure there is a valid route to the host. If there is not, read Section 32.2, “Gateways and Routes”.

ping: sendto: Permission denied error messages are often caused by a misconfigured firewall. If a firewall is enabled on FreeBSD but no rules have been defined, the default policy is to deny all traffic, even ping(8). Refer to Chapter 31, Firewalls for more information.

Sometimes performance of the card is poor or below average. In these cases, try setting the media selection mode from autoselect to the correct media selection. While this works for most hardware, it may or may not resolve the issue. Again, check all the network settings, and refer to tuning(7).