New Driver for Realtek RTL8111

[kadak]

And this is speed with internet, no between computers. 

[kadak]

I found that problem comes up only when computer receives data from another computer, if computer transmits data out, then all is "usable" at least . If I relaunch then Finder, that problem may or may not occur. Problematic computer is Gigabyte PH67A-UD3LR with I3 2130, RTL8100E. So, I think that power management is not cause of problem - if transmitting data is working. 

I downgraded RTL driver to v2.0.0., no visible changes.

[Mieze]

Why this packet handling problem (if this is a case) is only in local connection, not in internet traffic?

Stupid question! Think about packet roundtrip time in both cases and how a few dozens of microseconds delay caused by PM may affect it.

 Problematic computer is Gigabyte PH67A-UD3LR with I3 2130, RTL8100E.

No way! The RTL8100E isn't supported by this driver at all.

So, I think that power management is not cause of problem - if transmitting data is working.

What makes you assume that this rules out a PM issue?

 

Mieze

[kadak]

I say - I think, not I rule out. There is difference (for me at least ). And because of that picture:

It seems to me not very logical even from Apple - cut down bandwith for some moment and then restore again. I think (again) that if PM is broken, its is broken all the time, not by random base. And if PM is broken, then some more problems will come up. I don't see any other problems related to power management. 

 

I have too much computers, srry - I mistakenly give a wrong model and chip number, RTL chip is RTL8111E as I wrote initially. 

 

About stupid question - no, I don't know how PM causes a delay of few dozens of microseconds, when traffic goes thru GB switch to computer next of it... that's why I asked about.

 

So, how that PM causes delay only when traffic is local? Why traffic from WAN is privileged and not affected? 

Oh, this makes two stupid questions again . Not much... so there is more. What  everyone needs to repair exactly in PM (for healty network)?

 

Sorry about questions, I live with Mac's start from 10.3 Panther, but I am first time in Sierra... 

[FFForever]

Good afternoon Mieze,

 

After leaving my system unattended / in sleep mode for an extended period of time I came back to a kernel panic. 

 

Is there any known issues with Sierra?

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff80004011bd): Kernel trap at 0xffffff7f838951a2, type 14=page fault, registers:
CR0: 0x000000008001003b, CR2: 0xffffff81ec657000, CR3: 0x0000000009b62000, CR4: 0x00000000001627e0
RAX: 0x0000000000000000, RBX: 0x0000000000000000, RCX: 0xffffff81ec657000, RDX: 0xffffff81c2469088
RSP: 0xffffff81ed40be40, RBP: 0xffffff81ed40be50, RSI: 0x0000000000000000, RDI: 0xffffff81a1b97000
R8: 0x00000591bb32903c, R9: 0xffffff80296b6d98, R10: 0x0000000000000000, R11: 0xffffff8000a8a810
R12: 0x00000591ba46549d, R13: 0x000000008df5a1c1, R14: 0xffffff81a1b97000, R15: 0xffffff81a1b972a0
RFL: 0x0000000000010246, RIP: 0xffffff7f838951a2, CS: 0x0000000000000008, SS: 0x0000000000000010
Fault CR2: 0xffffff81ec657000, Error code: 0x0000000000000002, Fault CPU: 0x0, PL: 0, VF: 1

Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff81ed40bad0 : 0xffffff80002ec3ec
0xffffff81ed40bb50 : 0xffffff80004011bd
0xffffff81ed40bd30 : 0xffffff800029d543
0xffffff81ed40bd50 : 0xffffff7f838951a2
0xffffff81ed40be50 : 0xffffff7f83896e39
0xffffff81ed40be70 : 0xffffff7f838967ea
0xffffff81ed40bea0 : 0xffffff7f8389609f
0xffffff81ed40bee0 : 0xffffff80008bcfaf
0xffffff81ed40bf30 : 0xffffff80008bb811
0xffffff81ed40bf80 : 0xffffff80008badf6
0xffffff81ed40bfb0 : 0xffffff800029a8f7
Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
com.insanelymac.RealtekRTL8111(2.2.1)[8BA5E6A6-5DCA-3102-B71B-CE613147F452]@0xffffff7f83835000->0xffffff7f8389bfff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily(3.2)[6326DB88-5330-3F0C-91F6-D478AB5E7503]@0xffffff7f812fd000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[C6E3195E-A0D7-3B71-B5F4-9EE9E182D4FC]@0xffffff7f80b32000

[Mieze]

 

Good afternoon Mieze,

 

After leaving my system unattended / in sleep mode for an extended period of time I came back to a kernel panic. 

 

Is there any known issues with Sierra?

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff80004011bd): Kernel trap at 0xffffff7f838951a2, type 14=page fault, registers:
CR0: 0x000000008001003b, CR2: 0xffffff81ec657000, CR3: 0x0000000009b62000, CR4: 0x00000000001627e0
RAX: 0x0000000000000000, RBX: 0x0000000000000000, RCX: 0xffffff81ec657000, RDX: 0xffffff81c2469088
RSP: 0xffffff81ed40be40, RBP: 0xffffff81ed40be50, RSI: 0x0000000000000000, RDI: 0xffffff81a1b97000
R8: 0x00000591bb32903c, R9: 0xffffff80296b6d98, R10: 0x0000000000000000, R11: 0xffffff8000a8a810
R12: 0x00000591ba46549d, R13: 0x000000008df5a1c1, R14: 0xffffff81a1b97000, R15: 0xffffff81a1b972a0
RFL: 0x0000000000010246, RIP: 0xffffff7f838951a2, CS: 0x0000000000000008, SS: 0x0000000000000010
Fault CR2: 0xffffff81ec657000, Error code: 0x0000000000000002, Fault CPU: 0x0, PL: 0, VF: 1

Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff81ed40bad0 : 0xffffff80002ec3ec
0xffffff81ed40bb50 : 0xffffff80004011bd
0xffffff81ed40bd30 : 0xffffff800029d543
0xffffff81ed40bd50 : 0xffffff7f838951a2
0xffffff81ed40be50 : 0xffffff7f83896e39
0xffffff81ed40be70 : 0xffffff7f838967ea
0xffffff81ed40bea0 : 0xffffff7f8389609f
0xffffff81ed40bee0 : 0xffffff80008bcfaf
0xffffff81ed40bf30 : 0xffffff80008bb811
0xffffff81ed40bf80 : 0xffffff80008badf6
0xffffff81ed40bfb0 : 0xffffff800029a8f7
Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
com.insanelymac.RealtekRTL8111(2.2.1)[8BA5E6A6-5DCA-3102-B71B-CE613147F452]@0xffffff7f83835000->0xffffff7f8389bfff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IONetworkingFamily(3.2)[6326DB88-5330-3F0C-91F6-D478AB5E7503]@0xffffff7f812fd000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[C6E3195E-A0D7-3B71-B5F4-9EE9E182D4FC]@0xffffff7f80b32000

No, the driver is working perfectly with Sierra. As Apple hasn't changed anything in the network driver interface for a long time, there are no issues to expect but there are a few points you should check:

• ​Most problems are the result of a messed up system (system caches, config files, etc.), in particular kernel panics. This is what you should check first because it is a real classic which used to be reported after almost every major update of OS X but none of these reports have turned out to be a real driver issue yet. 
• Sierra is much more picky about ACPI data than earlier versions so that DSDTs which used to work fine with El Capitan now produce errors.
• Check your BIOS settings and make sure that network boot, the UEFI network stack and any LAN related power management options are disabled.

Mieze

[FFForever]

No, the driver is working perfectly with Sierra. As Apple hasn't changed anything in the network driver interface for a long time, there are no issues to expect but there are a few points you should check:

• ​Most problems are the result of a messed up system (system caches, config files, etc.), in particular kernel panics. This is what you should check first because it is a real classic which used to be reported after almost every major update of OS X but none of these reports have turned out to be a real driver issue yet. 
• Sierra is much more picky about ACPI data than earlier versions so that DSDTs which used to work fine with El Capitan now produce errors.
• Check your BIOS settings and make sure that network boot, the UEFI network stack and any LAN related power management options are disabled.

Mieze

 

Thanks for the prompt response. I found the issue and it was related to my ssdt. After fixing that the problem went away.

[modzilla]

Hey Mieze,


does ur driver work with the Realtek RTL8118AS? Really hope so  

[Mieze]

Hey Mieze,

 

 

does ur driver work with the Realtek RTL8118AS? Really hope so  

Frankly, I don't know as there is no documentation for this chip available but Realtek claims that their Linux driver, on which my driver is based, supports it! So there might be a chance but you've got to test it yourself...

 

Mieze 

[modzilla]

Well okay, thanks...

 

Gesendet von meinem ONEPLUS A3003 mit Tapatalk

[checked]

Mieze,

I saw Realtek sources (8.044.02) at realtek site. Anything useful in it?

 

0009-r8168-8.044.02.tar.bz2

[Mieze]

Mieze,

I saw Realtek sources (8.044.02) at realtek site. Anything useful in it?

 

0009-r8168-8.044.02.tar.bz2

No!

 

Mieze 

[PauloBral]

Hi, just wanted to thank for the driver, it is better than official Realtek - that gives me random KP - and yours work like a charm!

[Dewdman42]

Mieze,

 

I've been using your driver for a few years now with great success, thank you.  Using version 2.2.1d3 on Mavericks, which I believe is the last version I can use pre-Yosemite.  It has worked perfectly with great performance! on my GA-P35-DS4

 

I am thinking about upgrading this box to El Capitan or Sierra just to be more current.  Of course, upgrading a hackintosh always carries some risk, so just checking around some things before I proceed.  Anything I should concern myself with your network drive on newer versions of OSX?

 

Its been a while since I set it up, but i seem to recall its a pretty vanilla setup...I have to check what other DSDT's I may have used..

[jackandjohn]

I had a couple hiccups with Docker and upon investigation found that I was using 1.2.0 of the driver.

 

I'm using Clover on 10.12

 

 

1. Deleted the old kext
2. Deleted the network interface (en0)
3. Rebooted
4. Copied 2.2.1 to EFI/CLOVER/kexts/10.12/
5. Rebooted
6. The network interface was not recreated automatically

kextstat|grep RTL
   53    0 0xffffff7f82911000 0x5b000    0x5b000    com.insanelymac.RealtekRTL8111 (2.2.1) FC9510CF-80F7-3AF4-B1C3-8A425FBB8E2C <52 12 5 4 3 1>p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Menlo; color: #000000; background-color: #ffffff}
span.s1 {font-variant-ligatures: no-common-ligatures}

grep RealtekRTL8111 /var/log/system.log

(No output)

 

I did go in to the network preference and add an "Ethernet" interface which did allow me to access the internet, but I'm concerned about Apple accounts, iMessage, etc

 

 

What's the best next step to get en0 back?

 

[Mieze]

grep RealtekRTL8111 /var/log/system.log

Apple reworked logging completely in Sierra. You need to use a different command in order to retrieve kernel logs. Please see post#1 of this thread for instructions.

 

Mieze

Anything I should concern myself with your network drive on newer versions of OSX?

Honestly, I have no personal experience with the driver on pre-SB hardware but in theory it should work fine. The only thing I'm concerned of is the fact that some users with old hardware reported performance issues due to power management which was reworked by Apple in El Capitan and Sierra.

 

Mieze

[Dewdman42]

What does "SB" stand for?

 

So I guess what you're saying is that Yosemite may be ok but El Capitan and sierra are a {censored} shoot due to power management. Does that problem you speak of occur even if I never let the machine sleep?

[Mieze]

SB = Sandy Bridge. Sleep has no influence on the driver's performance at all. The problem is, that Apple reworked PM in a way to allow the CPU to stay in a low power P-State for extended periods. This is effective with regard to power consumption but may also result in a delay when the CPU has to wakeup in order to service interrupt requests which in turn may increase packet round trip time. Unfortunately this may interact with TCP's congestion avoidance mechanism which uses packet roundtrip time and it's standard deviation to make assumptions about network congestion and throttles packet rate in case of a "congested network". In short, the variation of packet roundtrip time may cause TCP to erroneously assume a congested network and to slow down operation even though there is plenty of bandwidth available.

 

Mieze

[Dewdman42]

so that problem you speak of...you feel that is only applicable to before-SB,...possibly...or are you experiencing that problem with SB too?

 

Sounds like I may just stick with Mavericks, or perhaps I will upgrade to Yosemite just to be a bit more current, but perhaps not past there.  I'm only using this machine as a server anyway...  Why rock the boat...

[nms]

Mieze,

would you be so kind to place binaries under 'release' tag at github?

 

Thanks

[Mieze]

so that problem you speak of...you feel that is only applicable to before-SB,...possibly...or are you experiencing that problem with SB too?

 

Sounds like I may just stick with Mavericks, or perhaps I will upgrade to Yosemite just to be a bit more current, but perhaps not past there.  I'm only using this machine as a server anyway...  Why rock the boat...

SB is ok, like any other hardware generation which is still officially supported by macOS because Apple's developers optimized PM so that it won't affect network performance for those architectures. The problem only affects unsupported hardware and certain notebooks which may differ from regular hardware with regard to PM.

 

Mieze

[Mieze]

Mieze,

would you be so kind to place binaries under 'release' tag at github?

 

Thanks

Why? Binaries can be found here on IM in the Download section. Placing them on GitHub would require additional work to keep them in sync but if you give me a good reason to do so, I might rethink my decision.

 

Mieze

[dj_sash]

A New Driver for Realtek RTL8111

 

Due to the lack of an OS X driver that makes use of the advanced features of the Realtek RTL81111/8168 series I started a new project with the aim to create a state of the art driver that gets the most out of those NICs which can be found on virtually any cheap board on the market today. Based on Realtek's Linux driver (version 8.035.0) I have written a driver that is optimized for performance while making efficient use of system resources and keeping the CPU usage down under heavy load.

 

Key Features of the Driver

• Supports Realtek RTL8111/8168 B/C/D/E/F/G found on recent boards.
• Support for multisegment packets relieving the network stack of unnecessary copy operations when assembling packets for transmission.
• No-copy receive and transmit. Only small packets are copied on reception because creating a copy is more efficient than allocating a new buffer.
• TCP, UDP and IPv4 checksum offload (receive and transmit).
• TCP segmentation offload under IPv4.
• Support for TCP/IPv6 and UDP/IPv6 checksum offload.
• Fully optimized for Mountain Lion (64bit architecture) but should work with Lion too. As of now there is no support for Snow Leopard but it can be added if someone will create the necessary patches.
• Supports Wake on LAN.
• Support for Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) which can be disabled by setting enableEEE to NO in the drivers Info.plist without rebuild. The default is YES.
• The driver is published under GPLv2.

Limitations

• As checksum offload doesn't work with jumbo frames they are currently unsupported and will definitely never be.
• No support for 32bit kernels.

Installation

Before you install the driver you have to remove any installed driver for RTL8111/8168.

• Goto /S/L/E and delete the old driver (Lnx2mac, AppleRealtekRTL8169, etc.).
• Recreate the kernel cache.
• Open System Preferences and delete the corresponding network interface, e. g. en0. If you forget this step you might experience strange problems with certain Apple domains, iTunes and iCloud later.
• Reboot.
• Install the new driver and recreate the kernel cache. I recommend to use Kext Wizard or a similar utility for the installation.
• Reboot
• Open System Preferences again, select Network and check if the new network interface has been created automatically or create it manually now.
• Configure the interface.

Troubleshooting

• Make sure you have followed the installation instructions especially when you have issues with certain domains while the others are working fine.
• Use the debug version to collect log data when trying to track down problems. The kernel log messages can be found in /var/log/system.log. For Sierra and above use "log show --predicate "processID == 0" --debug" in order to retrieve kernel logs. Include the log data when asking for support or giving feedback. I'm an engineer, not a clairvoyant.
• Check your BIOS settings. You might want to disable Network Boot and the UEFI Network Stack as these can interfere with the driver.
• Double check that you have removed any other Realtek kext from your system because they could prevent the driver from working properly.
• Verify your bootloader configuration, in particular the kernel flags. Avoid using npci=0x2000 or npci=0x3000. 
• In Terminal run netstat -s in order to display network statistics. Carefully examine the data for any unusual activity like a high number of packets with bad IP header checksums, etc.
• In case auto-configuration of the link layer connection doesn't work it might be necessary to select the medium manually in System Preferences under Network for the interface.
• Use Wireshark to create a packet dump in order to collect diagnostic information.
• Keep in mind that there are many manufacturers of network equipment. Although Ethernet is an IEEE standard different implementations may show different behavior causing incompatibilities. In case you are having trouble try a different switch or a different cable.

FAQ

• How can I retrieve the kernel logs?
  • In Terminal type "grep kernel /var/log/system.log".
• ​I want to disable Energy Efficient Ethernet (EEE) but I don't know how?
  • ​Take a look at the driver's Info.plist file. There you will find an option named <key>enableEEE</key>. Change its value from <true/> to <false/>. Don't forget to recreate the kernel cache after changing the value.​
• WoL from S5 doesn't work with this driver but under Windows it's working. Is this a driver bug?
  • No it isn't, the driver is working as it should because OS X doesn't support WoL from S5.

Current status

• The driver has been successfully tested under 10.8.x and 10.9 with the B, C, D, E, F and G versions of the RTL8111/8168 and is known to work stable on these devices.

Changelog

• Version 2.2.1 (2016-03-12):
  • Updated underlying linux sources from Realtek to 8.041.00.
  • Added support for RTL8111H.
  • Implemented Apple’s polled receive driver model (RXPOLL).
  • Requires 10.11 or newer. Support for older versions of OS X has been dropped.
• Version 2.0.0 (2015-06-21):
  • ​Uses Apple's private driver interface introduced with 10.8.
  • Supports packet scheduling with QFQ.
  • Please note that 2.0.0 is identical to 2.0.0d2. Only the version number has changed.
• Version 1.2.3 (2014-08-23):
  • Reworked TSO4 and added support for TSO6.
• Version 1.2.2 (2014-08-44):
  • ​Added an option to disable Active State Power Management (ASPM, default disabled) as ASPM seems to result in unstable operation of some chipsets.
  • ​Resolved a problem with Link Aggregation after reboot.
  • Added a workaround for the multicast filter bug of chipset 17 (RTL8111F) which prevented Bonjour from working properly​
• ​Version 1.2.0 (2014-04-24):
  • Updated underlying linux sources from Realtek to 8.037.00.
  • Improved interrupt mitigate to use a less aggressive value for 10/100 MBit connections.
• ​Version 1.1.3 (2013-11-29):
  • Improved transmit queue handling made it possible to reduce CPU load during packet transmission.
  • Improved deadlock detection logic in order to avoid false positives due to lost interrupts.
• Version 1.1.2 (2013-08-03):
  • Improved SMB performance in certain configurations.
  • Faster browsing of large shares.
• ​Version 1.1.0 (2013-06-08):
  • Support for TCP/IPv6 and UDP/IPv6 checksum offload added (can be disabled in Info.plist).
  • Maximum size of the scatter-gather-list has been increased from 24 to 40 segments to resolve performance issues with TSO4 when offloading large packets which are highly fragmented.
  • TSO4 can be disabled in Info.plist without rebuild.
  • Statistics gathering has been improved to deliver more detailed information (resource shortages, transmitter resets, transmitter interrupt count).
  • The interrupt mitigate settings has been changed to improve performance with SMB and to reduce CPU load.
  • Configuration option added to allow for user defined interrupt mitigate settings without rebuild.
• Version 1.0.4 (2013-05-04):
  • Moved setLinkStatus(kIONetworkLinkValid) from start() to enable(). Cleaned up getDescCommand().
• Version 1.0.3 (2013-04-25):
  • ​The issue after a reboot from Windows has been eliminated.
• Version 1.0.2 (2013-04-22):
  • ​Added support for rx checksum offload of TCP and UDP over IPv6.
• Version 1.0.1 (2013-03-31):
  • Improved behavior when rx checksum offload isn't working properly.
  • Adds the chipset's model name to IORegistry so that it will show up in System Profiler.

Known Issues

• There are still performance problems with regard to SMB in certain configurations. My tests indicate that Apple's Broadcom driver shows the same behavior with those configurations. Obviously it's a more general problem that is not limited to my driver.
• WoL does not work in certain configurations.

Getting the driver

• The source code can be found here: https://github.com/M...driver_for_OS_X
• There is also a pre-build binary for Mavericks and Yosemite: http://www.insanelym...n-and-wireless/

 

Building from Source

I'm using XCode 4.6.3 for development. You can get a free copy of XCode after becoming a member of the Apple developer program. The free membership is sufficient in order to get access to development tools and documentation.

Hi Mieze,

I can see you online right now.

 

I have been using hackintosh since long. I am having an issue with my RTL8111C kext (1.2.3). Because when testing my upload and download speed on other systems, it is going up to 20 mbps. But, only on the mackintosh system El Capitan, I am getting at about 9-9.5 gbps

So, after reading a lot of topics I am coming to your latest version kext 2.2.1

 

But, after downloading it from github, it does not look like what I usually get as kext files.

 

Can you explain to me how to install that?

 

Or can we have a chat where I can chat with you, not to be lost in that installation?

 

Let me know.

 

Thanks

[Mieze]

@dj_sash: I case you don't know how to build from source, please use the prebuilt binary from the download section.

 

Mieze

[dj_sash]

@dj_sash: I case you don't know how to build from source, please use the prebuilt binary from the download section.

 

Mieze

How to do that?

Can you explain to me on Skype?

And you said something in LIMITATIONS that's getting me worried "No support for 32bit kernels"

 

I am not so pro in what you are telling me.

How to do that?

Can you explain to me on Skype?

And you said something in LIMITATIONS that's getting me worried "No support for 32bit kernels"

 

I am not so pro in what you are telling me.

I just downloaded the Binary one. There is one called 'Debug' and another one 'Release'

Which one I should use?

 

I am running OS X El Capitan on ASUS P5KPL AM/PS with an Intel Core 2 Duo CPU