Hardware Overview
The Netgate SG-4860 is an Intel Atom C25xx based multi-port gigabit ethernet router/firewall. It's based on the ADI (Now Silicom) RCC-VE OEM platform.
(TBD)
Installation Quirks
- Starting with FreeBSD-14, the non-PnP/ACPI UART ports aren't being detected by default. This is needed to be added at the bootloader command line and after boot for the bootloader and kernel console to work.
boot_serial="YES" hint.uart.0.at="isa" hint.uart.1.at="isa" hint.uart.0.flags="0x10" comconsole_pcidev="" comconsole_port="760" # 0x2f8 comconsole_speed="115200" console="comconsole"
- Make sure you put this in /boot/loader.conf after installation is complete but before rebooting into the OS, or you'll need to do it again at the bootloader.
- Loading the ismt(4) driver is required to avoid legacy IRQ storms on irq 17 on the second mPCIe slot.
- The other SMBus driver sometimes caused problems, at least in the past. The spam looks like this:
Feb 16 16:37:45 kernel ichsmb0: interrupt loop, status=0x60
- To fix, add this to /boot/loader.conf
hint.ichsmb.0.disabled=1
Platform Quirks
- The Atom C2000 product family has some errata around pin functionality, which can result in devices becoming non-booting over time. This was worked around in BIOS ADI_RCCVE-01.00.00.12.
There was a problem with interrupt storms on the second mPCIe slot, which was addressed in BIOS ADI_RCCVE-01.00.00.10 by swizzling the INTA -> INTD mapping for that slot.
- .. However, the second mPCIe slot now shares irq 17 with an SMBus controller which will generate an interrupt storm on said legacy interrupt. Loading the ismt(4) driver resolves this.
MiniPCIe compatibility
Atheros/QCA NICs are a bit hit and miss. They just don't seem to enumerate.
- All of the 11abg (AR24xx/AR54xx) NICs are hit and miss, unfortunately.
- The AR5418 11abgn NICs don't seem to work.
- The AR9280 11abgn NICs work fine.
- The AR9380 11abgn NICs work fine.
- The QCA9880 11abgn/11ac NICs work fine (but no driver support yet in FreeBSD-HEAD, as of March 2025.)
Vendor Information
Netgate Website (Mar 2025): https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/solutions/sg-4860/index.html
Silicom (was ADI engineering) website: https://www.silicom-usa.com/pr/embedded_motherboards/rcc-ve-network-board/
ADI BIOS sources (coreboot): https://github.com/ADIEngineering/adi_coreboot_public/
Intel Errata for the C2000 family: https://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/specification-updates/atom-c2000-family-spec-update.pdf