Synology NICs - Firmware Updates?

[Robbie]

I run a Synology E10G18-T1 in one of my NASes and it has been ticking along for a few years now. In all that time it has not had a firmware update nor has Synology added anything to DSM to enable their NICs to be updated in-situ.

The firmware on the NIC is from 2018 and has been superseded many times over:

Rob@Rivendell:~$ sudo ethtool -i eth4
Password:
driver: atlantic
version: 2.4.3.0
firmware-version: 3.1.30
expansion-rom-version:
bus-info: 0000:01:00.0
supports-statistics: yes
supports-test: yes
supports-eeprom-access: no
supports-register-dump: yes
supports-priv-flags: yes
Rob@Rivendell:~$

Underneath the Synology badge the NIC is a regular Atlantic / Aquantia / AQtion / Marvell / Whatever-Next AQC107. Are people just ignoring the updates or pulling the drivers and firmware updates direct from Marvell or from a different vendor of the '107 card?

?

️

 

[Robbie]

Synology got back to me to say that they can update cards as part of a DSM update... not sure if I have ever seen that yet.
I have added a feature request to DSM to allow for a painless update of Synology add-on PCIe cards. It cannot be right that these cards receive zero updates and support from Synology, especially when the OEM is actively pushing updates out to the wider market.

I do have another ACQ107 PCIe card branded in red rather than blue. It has been kept up-to-date:

Synology Installed Linux Driver v2.4.3; latest available = v2.4.15
Synology Installed Firmware v3.1.30; latest available = v3.1.121

The red ACQ107 card has more features, is more stable and now runs quite a bit quicker than the blue Synology one:

️

 

[anom3]

Bit of an old post, but...

This is all untested on my end, but I am planning on doing it tonight:

a) The firmware can MOST LIKELY be updated by throwing the card into your desktop / workstation and running the firmware update utility found on marvels site. I have another brands AQC107 based adapter in my workstation and 2 days ago I just bumped my firmware up to the latest. It was a painless operation in Win10.

b) The driver can most likely be recompiled by setting up the build environment for your specific model and compiling the driver that way... And then just (backup first!) replacing the .ko... Or rmmod the exiting one, and insmod the new one if you perfer. I am going to dive in by loosely following this guide :

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/synology/comments/k4a5px/how_i_got_a_generic_cheap_aqc107_card_working_on/

Anyone else able to figure this out using a more... easier... method?

 

[anom3]

Small update, I had a chance to compile the driver for the latest (as of this writing) DSM 7.2.

The binary blob is located at GitHub - anonymous-one/synology-7.2-atlantic-2.5.6: Updated AQC kernel module for DSM 7.2 if anyone wants to give it a whirl.

I have not had a chance to test it yet but will do so tonight. As far as updating the firmware, I think the easiest way will be just to move the card to my workstation and do it there. I did find the DIAG app from AQC but am unsure if I will be able to get it running via a docker container within the NAS to update the firmware like so.

 

[anom3]

Update :

It works.

root@NAS:~# uname -a ; ethtool -i eth4 ;
Linux NAS 4.4.302+ #64570 SMP Tue Jun 13 21:39:53 CST 2023 x86_64 GNU/Linux synology_v1000_1621+
driver: atlantic
version: 2.5.6.0
firmware-version: 3.1.30
expansion-rom-version:
bus-info: 0000:07:00.0
supports-statistics: yes
supports-test: yes
supports-eeprom-access: no
supports-register-dump: yes
supports-priv-flags: yes


You can either:

a) rmmod atlantic ; insmod /location/atlantic.ko ; /etc/rc.network restart ;

b) or do what I did and just backup /lib/modules/atlantic.ko and replace it.

Next I'll try updating the firmware on the card by dropping it into my workstation.

 

[anom3]

Welp, I call that success.

Its a shame so many hoops to jump through to get the latest drivers + firmware running but oh well.

Swapping the card into my workstation and using the windows 10 firmware update app straight off marvels site worked perfectly:

root@NAS:~# uname -a ; ethtool -i eth4
Linux NAS 4.4.302+ #64570 SMP Tue Jun 13 21:39:53 CST 2023 x86_64 GNU/Linux synology_v1000_1621+
driver: atlantic
version: 2.5.6.0
firmware-version: 3.1.121
expansion-rom-version:
bus-info: 0000:07:00.0
supports-statistics: yes
supports-test: yes
supports-eeprom-access: no
supports-register-dump: yes
supports-priv-flags: yes

 

[Robbie]

I'm very interested, especially for the 2-port Syno 10 GbE PCIe NIC.

 

[Coop777]

I get wanting to use 3rd party NICs, but be aware that because they are not officially supported, an update of DSM could make them incompatible

 

[Robbie]

My current Syno NIC - the dual-port version:

Rob@Rivendell:~$ sudo ethtool -i eth4
Password:
driver: qede
version: 8.33.9.0 [storm 8.33.8.0]
firmware-version: mbi 8.30.29 [mfw 8.30.18.0]
expansion-rom-version:
bus-info: 0000:01:00.0
supports-statistics: yes
supports-test: yes
supports-eeprom-access: yes
supports-register-dump: yes
supports-priv-flags: yes
Rob@Rivendell:~$

️

 

[anom3]

My current Syno NIC - the dual-port version:

Rob@Rivendell:~$ sudo ethtool -i eth4
Password:
driver: qede
version: 8.33.9.0 [storm 8.33.8.0]
firmware-version: mbi 8.30.29 [mfw 8.30.18.0]
expansion-rom-version:
bus-info: 0000:01:00.0
supports-statistics: yes
supports-test: yes
supports-eeprom-access: yes
supports-register-dump: yes
supports-priv-flags: yes
Rob@Rivendell:~$

️

thats a qlogic adapter... but im guessing the process would probably be the same.

a) compile the driver in the build environment matching your arch + release #.

b) just to keep it simple, update the firmware by plugging the adapter into a windows machine and using the windows based firmware update util.

-- post merged: 18. Jul 2023 --

I get wanting to use 3rd party NICs, but be aware that because they are not officially supported, an update of DSM could make them incompatible

very very very unlikely unless synology starts doing some nasty stuff to start blocking open source / "free" efforts... this is just a vanilla kernel module that brings up an ethernet adapter, nothing more.

on top of that, synology should be maintaining their drivers + firmware at the most recent versions which each dsm update.

im not saying push out a new dsm whenever a new aqc drtiver / firmware drops... but at least update them when ever a new dsm is released.

then again, thats fine, as usual with synology devices... if you really want to upgrade the bits (like i did)... there is a fairly straight forward way.

keep in mind, the aqc driver + firmware thats included currently with the latest dsm... is known to me semi-unstable. nothing tragic, but from what i recall the firmware at least is like from 2018 or something... marvel has done quite a bit of stability improvements since then.