Re: Sitecom USB 3.0 NIC LN-031

michelmichel · ‎04-05-2014

Hi, I have a Sitecom LN-031 USB 3.0 NIC (Gigabit) and I'm trying to use it somehow, either as passthrough or not (either way is ok).

Question: is that possible?

Details from the log when plugging in the device:

2014-04-05T15:05:01.849Z cpu2:2499)<6>usb 1-1.2: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 3
2014-04-05T15:05:01.973Z cpu3:2499)<6>usb 1-1.2: New USB device found, idVendor=0df6, idProduct=0072
2014-04-05T15:05:01.973Z cpu3:2499)<6>usb 1-1.2: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=3
2014-04-05T15:05:01.973Z cpu3:2499)<6>usb 1-1.2: Product: Sitecom USB 3.0 Gigabit
2014-04-05T15:05:01.973Z cpu3:2499)<6>usb 1-1.2: Manufacturer: Sitecom Europe BV
2014-04-05T15:05:01.973Z cpu3:2499)<6>usb 1-1.2: SerialNumber: 00000000000001
2014-04-05T15:05:01.975Z cpu3:2499)<6>usb 1-1.2: usbfs: registered usb0103

Thanks in advance for your advice

ScreamingSilenc · ‎04-05-2014

Couldn't find Sitecom LN-031 NIC in VMware Compatibility Guide, so I guess its not possible to use as passthrough but still you can give a try or use it as non passthrough.

Please consider marking this answer "correct" or "helpful" if you found it useful.

michelmichel · ‎04-06-2014

I actually managed to physically pass through the USB 3 port and with that the attached LN-031. Inside, as a guest, a debian machine with the ax88179_178a module (had to install that from an ubuntu repo) provided me a eth0 device. That works, but with a very crappy performance, like 10 MB/s read and 40 MB/s write. I DID make sure with ethertool that I'm on 1000 and full duplex, same as the physical switch port, but that wasn't really the idea behind it. Any suggestions to get actually full Gigabit speed?

tomtom901 · ‎04-06-2014

Any dropped packets on either the guest or the physical switch? This shouldn't really be the way to get NICs into your system, but I can imagine scenarios in which you have no other choice.

srwsol · ‎04-06-2014

Could it be that you need to pass through the USB 3 controller instead of just the attached device? I've noted in the past that high bandwidth USB devices performed poorly when attached to the host and assigned to the guest. I'm not sure if that's been corrected with USB 3 or not. I have a whitebox that I pass the entire USB 3 controller through to the guest, and the performance of the hard drives attached to it when configured that way are the same as native.

michelmichel · ‎04-07-2014

Hi tomtom901, I've copied a 4GB iso file from windows to the linux guest.

while doing that, I got around 40 MB/s with no drops.

Then, I've renamed the file, sync'ed the disk, restarted smb and copied back the file, the same effect with 10 MB/s.

eth1	Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:0c:f6:ff:fe:92
	inet addr:192.168.2.20 Bcast:192.168.2.255 Mask:255.255.255.0
	inet6 addr: fe80::20c:f6ff:feff:fe92/64 Scope:Link
	UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1
	RX packets:4744504 errors:0 dropped:1 overruns:0 frame:0
	TX packets:4216994 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0
	collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000
	RX bytes:4685877622 (4.3 GiB) TX bytes:4745248666 (4.4 GiB)

The switch (GS724T/Netgear) says "Packets received with Errors" == 0 for all ports, same for "Transmit Packet Errors" and "Collision Frames", all ==0.

To the scenario question, of course, I prefer a proper NIC card, but my only pcie port is already allocated by the RAID controller. It's a HP Proliant Microserver Gen8 and the onboard NICs just are crap (110MB/s write which is ok, but 30MB/s read).

michelmichel · ‎04-07-2014

Hi srwsol, I DID indeed pass through both, the USB3 controller AND the USB3 device.

root@debian:/# lsusb

Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub

Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub

Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0e0f:0002 VMware, Inc. Virtual USB Hub

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0e0f:0002 VMware, Inc. Virtual USB Hub

Bus 001 Device 004: ID 0e0f:0003 VMware, Inc. Virtual Mouse

Bus 001 Device 005: ID 0df6:0072 Sitecom Europe B.V.

root@debian:/# lsusb -s 1d6b:0003 -v

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 0e0f:0002 VMware, Inc. Virtual USB Hub

Device Descriptor:

bLength 18

bDescriptorType 1

bcdUSB 2.00

bDeviceClass 9 Hub

bDeviceSubClass 0 Unused

bDeviceProtocol 0 Full speed (or root) hub

bMaxPacketSize0 64

idVendor 0x0e0f VMware, Inc.

idProduct 0x0002 Virtual USB Hub

bcdDevice 1.00

iManufacturer 0

iProduct 1 VMware Virtual USB Hub

iSerial 0

bNumConfigurations 1

Configuration Descriptor:

bLength 9

bDescriptorType 2

wTotalLength 25

bNumInterfaces 1

bConfigurationValue 1

iConfiguration 1 VMware Virtual USB Hub

bmAttributes 0xe0

Self Powered

Remote Wakeup

MaxPower 0mA

Interface Descriptor:

bLength 9

bDescriptorType 4

bInterfaceNumber 0

bAlternateSetting 0

bNumEndpoints 1

bInterfaceClass 9 Hub

bInterfaceSubClass 0 Unused

bInterfaceProtocol 0 Full speed (or root) hub

iInterface 1 VMware Virtual USB Hub

Endpoint Descriptor:

bLength 7

bDescriptorType 5

bEndpointAddress 0x81 EP 1 IN

bmAttributes 3

Transfer Type Interrupt

Synch Type None

Usage Type Data

wMaxPacketSize 0x0001 1x 1 bytes

bInterval 4

Hub Descriptor:

bLength 9

bDescriptorType 41

nNbrPorts 7

wHubCharacteristic 0x0009

Per-port power switching

Per-port overcurrent protection

bPwrOn2PwrGood 50 * 2 milli seconds

bHubContrCurrent 100 milli Ampere

DeviceRemovable 0x00

PortPwrCtrlMask 0xfe

Hub Port Status:

Port 1: 0000.0503 highspeed power enable connect

Port 2: 0000.0100 power

Port 3: 0000.0100 power

Port 4: 0000.0100 power

Port 5: 0000.0100 power

Port 6: 0000.0100 power

Port 7: 0000.0100 power

Device Qualifier (for other device speed):

bLength 10

bDescriptorType 6

bcdUSB 2.00

bDeviceClass 0 (Defined at Interface level)

bDeviceSubClass 0

bDeviceProtocol 0

bMaxPacketSize0 8

bNumConfigurations 1

Device Status: 0x0001

Self Powered

All

Sitecom USB 3.0 NIC LN-031