Running USB NICs with Sophos UTM

Today I saw an USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter at my company and I wanted to know if it’s working on a Sophos UTM. The USB NIC adapter is a Digitus DN-3023 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter (RJ-45 to USB 3.0):

So I installed a new Sophos UTM on a barebone PC. I used an old 9.312-81 software appliance ISO. After the installation and initial setup, I couldn’t see the nic at the linux shell. I found an old Feature Request where a product manager said, that the AX88179 chip will be supported at 9.317:

So i updated the UTM to 9.355-1. After a reboot I still couldn’t choose this adapter in the WebAdmin. So I went to the linux shell to check if the hardware was found:

utm:/root # lsusb
Bus 001 Device 002: ID 045b:0209 Hitachi, Ltd
Bus 002 Device 002: ID 045b:0210 Hitachi, Ltd
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 003: ID 058f:9254 Alcor Micro Corp. Hub
Bus 002 Device 003: ID 0b95:1790 ASIX Electronics Corp.
Bus 001 Device 004: ID 03f0:0024 Hewlett-Packard KU-0316 Keyboard
Bus 001 Device 005: ID 046d:c018 Logitech, Inc. Optical Wheel Mouse
Bus 001 Device 006: ID 10d5:55a4 Uni Class Technology Co., Ltd

as you can see, the hardware “ASIX Electronics Corp.” USB NIC adapter was found. OK let’s try to install the hardware as a NIC:

utm:/root # lshw -c network
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: RTL8111/8168 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
logical name: eth0
version: 06
serial: fc:aa:14:e3:38:49
size: 1Gbit/s
capacity: 1Gbit/s
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full firmware=rtl8168e-3_0.0.4 03/27/12 ip=192.168.0.1 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=1Gbit/s
resources: irq:105 ioport:e000(size=256) memory:d0704000-d0704fff memory:d0700000-d0703fff
*-network
description: Ethernet interface
product: RTL8111/8168 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet controller
vendor: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd.
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:02:00.0
logical name: eth1
version: 06
serial: fc:aa:14:e3:38:47
size: 1Gbit/s
capacity: 1Gbit/s
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress msix vpd bus_master cap_list ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=on broadcast=yes driver=r8169 driverversion=2.3LK-NAPI duplex=full firmware=rtl8168e-3_0.0.4 03/27/12 ip=10.192.227.96 latency=0 link=yes multicast=yes port=MII speed=1Gbit/s
resources: irq:106 ioport:d000(size=256) memory:d0604000-d0604fff memory:d0600000-d0603fff
*-network DISABLED
description: Ethernet interface
physical id: 1
bus info: usb@2:1.3
logical name: eth2
serial: 00:24:9b:0c:28:76
size: 10Mbit/s
capacity: 1Gbit/s
capabilities: ethernet physical tp mii 10bt 10bt-fd 100bt 100bt-fd 1000bt 1000bt-fd autonegotiation
configuration: autonegotiation=off broadcast=yes driver=ax88179_178a duplex=half link=no multicast=yes port=MII speed=10Mbit/s

the bold text contains the USB NIC adapter information. The device is still disabled. Reboot to activate it. Now you can see the NIC adapter in the WebAdmin:

Ok, but how is the performance of such a NIC? The barebone PC has USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports. I tested both ports and have the same bandwidth results:

The provider delivers an 100Mbit synchronous internet line. So I can say happily that the USB NIC runs very nice! Here are shell commands to check wether the adapter is connected to an USB 2.0 or 3.0 port:

USB 2.0:

utm:/root # lsusb -t
/: Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/1p, 5000M
|__ Port 1: Dev 2, If 0, Class=hub, Driver=hub/4p, 5000M
/: Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/6p, 480M
|__ Port 1: Dev 2, If 0, Class=hub, Driver=hub/4p, 480M
|__ Port 3: Dev 3, If 0, Class=vend., Driver=ax88179_178a, 480M

USB 3.0:

utm:/root # lsusb -t
/: Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/1p, 5000M
|__ Port 1: Dev 2, If 0, Class=hub, Driver=hub/4p, 5000M
|__ Port 3: Dev 3, If 0, Class=vend., Driver=ax88179_178a, 5000M
/: Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/6p, 480M
|__ Port 1: Dev 2, If 0, Class=hub, Driver=hub/4p, 480M

USB 2.0 has a gross datarate of 480 MBit/Sec (recognizable at “480M” at the end of the line) and USB 3.0 has a gross datarate of 4,000 MBit/Sec (“5000M” at the end of the line).

Currently I’m working for a future project for a tiny UTM. I will use this adapter for this, keep in touch ;-)