FreeBSD Network Status Week 47 2024

A cold snap has hit my part of Europe hard and it is feeling very seasonal. The rate of commits seems down this week, that is probably partially the 14.2 release and if I project a bit the weather.

Some nice changes coming in the WiFi stack and to other tools. In other stuff that I'm not covering here there is some good progress on risc-v support.

Goings on

Fall 2024 FreeBSD Summit

The videos from the Fall FreeBSD summit have been parted out and are available in this playlist:

BSD Devroom at FOSDEM 2024

Welcome to the BSD Devroom Call For Participation. The BSD Devroom aims
to provide a dedicated space for presentations covering BSD operating
system family.

Key dates

Proposals can be submitted by October the 30th, 2024
Submission deadline : 1st December 2024 Brussels time
Announcement of selected talks : 15th of December 2024
Conference dates : 1 & 2 February 2025
BSD devroom date : Saturday February 1st, 2025 afternoon (second half)

CFP is here

FreeBSD 14.2 Code Slush in Effet

THe 14.2 Code Slush is running and final (hopefully changes are landing) RC1 build should have started and we might make it without an RC2 build.

The 14.2-RELEASE cycle schedule as it stands now is:

 ports quarterly branch:  October 1, 2024
 reminder email:          October 7, 2024
 stable/14 slush:         October 18, 2024
 doc/ tree slush:         October 25, 2024
 releng/14.2 branch:      November 1, 2024
 BETA1 build starts:      November 1, 2024
 BETA2 build starts:      November 8, 2024
 doc/ tree tag:           November 8, 2024
 BETA3 build starts:      November 16, 2024
 ports package builds:    November 16-18, 2024
    <<< WE ARE HERE >>>
 RC1 build starts:        November 22, 2024
 RELEASE build starts:    November 29, 2024
 RELEASE announcement:    December 3, 2024
 14.1 EoL:                March 31, 2025
 14.2 EoL:                September 30, 2025
 14.* EoL:                November 30, 2028

https://wiki.freebsd.org/Releng/14.2ISSUES

Transport

I think this is mostly tidying things up, the rename is an adventure in sed. Writing these weekly and sitting on the regular transport calls it is sometimes hard to point at new features. I think the consistent development is a feature.

• 3789810845f1 tcp: avoid bcopy() in tcp_mss_update()
• 2944a888eabf tcp: remove so != NULL check
• b80c06cc0af4 tcp: use const argument in the TCP hostcache KPI
• 09000cc133d8 tcp: mechanically rename hostcache metrics structure fields
• 8caa2f5351de tcp: define tcp_lro_log() only when TCP_BLACKBOX is defined

Network Stack

A nice optimization in forwarding code when we detect a blackholed route.

• e27970ae8fff netinet: handle blackhole routes
• 438ca68cef3c netinet: default mib counter probe points off
• 48a88a4ee95a socket: Move SO_SPLICE next to other socket option constants
• 12fc79619aca Change the SOCKBUF_LOCK calls to use the more refined SOCK_XXXBUF_LOCK/UNLOCK.
• dae64402b3e8 rtsock: fix panic in rtsock_msg_buffer()
• 0289db325953 netlink/route: Fix the argument list for rtnl_handle_iflink()

Netdev

Driver improvements around TSO to support Accurate ECN in the future in igc, em and ixgbe.

• ab540d44ba32 igc: sysctl for TCP flag handling during TSO
• 90853dfac851 e1000: sysctl for TCP flag handling during TSO
• eea2e089f8da ixgbe: sysctl for TCP flag handling during TSO

Lots of movement in WiFi world. adrian@ has popped back up and started working out a queue of stuff for rtwn. There should be some good improvements to throughput and consistency in HEAD if you want to grab that and try.

We are seeing some steps towards higher rates in rtwn as well.

• 7dfaf238562c rtwn: Add device ID for TPLink RTL8192CU
• d99eb8230eb7 rtwn: change the USB TX transfers to only do one pending transfer per endpoint
• 8b51df0d4fad wpa: add support for GCMP-128 and BIP-128.
• 842a2c1ad396 uath: flush data/commands to the firmware before changing channel / state
• 7098b90152dd usb: fix the ID for the dual-band Wistron AR5523 USB NIC
• 3d0d43d25ac6 net80211: remove IEEE80211_FC0_QOSDATA
• c249cc3822dc net80211: migrate FC0_TYPE_MASK / FC0_SUBTYPE_MASK frame type checks to macros
• 1375790a15b1 net80211: add IEEE80211_IS_QOS_NULL()

bz@ landed changes to move iwlwifi from the source tree (and therefore shipped kernel modules) out of the tree. This includes support for adding the needed firmware from the installer, assuming you have internet access in the installer.

• 5399052c63a7 bsdinstall: wlanconfig: fix interface UP on (re-)starting wpa_supplicant
• 7e2996c1f5b4 release: install wireless firmware onto disc1 and dvd

Firewalls

Netlink API improvements for pf

• 7d929a444587 pf: Fix timestamps and connection rate in source node export
• e8eb3096d8d1 pf: Fix missing connection rate for DIOCGETSRCNODES

Fixes to tests and the build. Lots of tests use the packet accounting in FreeBSD which when we started we quickly learned was missing a lot of packets.

• 5eee34fa0351 pf tests: check counters on anchors
• 83641335f96c pf: clean up pflow sockets on jail removal
• 4b65481ac68a pf: fix build without DTrace
• 81f7ad324dd0 pf: add missing unlock
• 6463b6b59152 pfctl: clear statistic for specified addresses

Please Send Feedback

I would love to know if this summary was any help, if it was, or if you think I should cover other thing please let me know (thj@freebsd.org).

If you find a typo or have a correct let me know and I'll thank you at the end here.

You can see all prior posts here. ( rss )

This is the 9th edition of the Weekly Network Status report, currently I plan for the last report of the year to be written on the 13th of December.

I have received a lot of very positive feedback which helps me to write these. Right now I intend to start writing these again in the new year, I might do a summary for the Solstice month all at once, or I'll just do a week. I'm not sure yet.

My work on FreeBSD is supported by the FreeBSD Foundation , you can contribute to improving FreeBSD with code, documentation or financially by donating to the FreeBSD Foundation .