MP 1,1-5,1 (MP3,1-MP5,1 & macOS 12.3+) Looking for testers - Potential Aquantia 10GBe fix

[Jazzzny]

Hello everyone,

After doing some research, I have determined a potential fix for Aquantia 10 Gigabit Ethernet on macOS Monterey 12.3+. As you may (or may not) know, Apple broke Aquantia support for cMPs by rewriting the driver to require VT-D. Unfortunately, I do not have the required hardware to test out the fixes by myself, however in theory they should work properly.

If you would like to help test out a potential fix, please either send me a private message on MacRumors, ping me on the OCLP Discord Server and mention Aquantia support (Jazzzny#6861), or send me a DM on Discord.

You must have:
- A 2008-2012 Mac Pro
- An Aquantia 10GBe card which worked on macOS 12.2.1 or older
- OpenCore installed or be willing to install OpenCore (OCLP, manual configuration, or other solutions) - Root patches will NOT be required for this fix

Have a good day!

 

[c+r]

Hello everyone,

After doing some research, I have determined a potential fix for Aquantia 10 Gigabit Ethernet on macOS Monterey 12.3+. As you may (or may not) know, Apple broke Aquantia support for cMPs by rewriting the driver to require VT-D. Unfortunately, I do not have the required hardware to test out the fixes by myself, however in theory they should work properly.

If you would like to help test out a potential fix, please either send me a private message on MacRumors, ping me on the OCLP Discord Server and mention Aquantia support (Jazzzny#6861), or send me a DM on Discord.

You must have:
- A 2008-2012 Mac Pro
- An Aquantia 10GBe card which worked on macOS 12.2.1 or older
- OpenCore installed or be willing to install OpenCore (OCLP, manual configuration, or other solutions) - Root patches will NOT be required for this fix

Have a good day!

Hi, noticed this only today. i have a sonnet solo that stopped working on my 5,1 when i installed 12.6 with martin lo's OC package. the only thing that helped was finding an installer for 12.2.1 and a clean install – this brought the 10G PCIe card back to life again. i still have the 12.6.6 installation on a separate drive and would happily beta test your patch. it would be friggin great if it worked – i would like to use 12.6.6 with the latest security updates instead of hoping that nothing happens as long as i'm on 12.2.1… (also, universal control is a nice feature.)

depending on your patch, i would change the config.plist for martin's OC install.

 

[Jazzzny]

Hi, noticed this only today. i have a sonnet solo that stopped working on my 5,1 when i installed 12.6 with martin lo's OC package. the only thing that helped was finding an installer for 12.2.1 and a clean install – this brought the 10G PCIe card back to life again. i still have the 12.6.6 installation on a separate drive and would happily beta test your patch. it would be friggin great if it worked – i would like to use 12.6.6 with the latest security updates instead of hoping that nothing happens as long as i'm on 12.2.1… (also, universal control is a nice feature.)

depending on your patch, i would change the config.plist for martin's OC install.

Alright, great!
Could you download this zip and add the two kernel extensions to your config?
Let me know what happens on 12.6.6.
Thanks

 

[c+r]

Alright, great!
Could you download this zip and add the two kernel extensions to your config?
Let me know what happens on 12.6.6.
Thanks

am i supposed to use these two Abuantia plugins as additional plugins or as replacements for Aquantia plugins in IONetworkingFamily.kext of the OC Boot EFI? IOW can i leave the Aq .kext where they are or will the Aq have.to be replaced with the ones you sent me? if so, there are two more Aq . plugins in the family .kext

• AppleEthernetAquantiaAqtionPortMonitor.kext
• AppleI2CEthernetAquantia.kext

will this be a conflict?

in my running 12.2.1 EFI config.plist, it says under Quirks:

<key>DisableIoMapper</key> <false/> <key>DisableIoMapperMapping</key> <false/> <key>ForceAquantiaEthernet</key> <true/>

that's the only mention of Aquantia. shouldn't there be a mention of your two Ab .kext in the .plist?

 

[Jazzzny]

am i supposed to use these two Abuantia plugins as additional plugins or as replacements for Aquantia plugins in IONetworkingFamily.kext of the OC Boot EFI? IOW can i leave the Aq .kext where they are or will the Aq have.to be replaced with the ones you sent me? if so, there are two more Aq . plugins in the family .kext

• AppleEthernetAquantiaAqtionPortMonitor.kext
• AppleI2CEthernetAquantia.kext

will this be a conflict?

in my running 12.2.1 EFI config.plist, it says under Quirks:

<key>DisableIoMapper</key> <false/> <key>DisableIoMapperMapping</key> <false/> <key>ForceAquantiaEthernet</key> <true/>

that's the only mention of Aquantia. shouldn't there be a mention of your two Ab .kext in the .plist?

You can leave the Aquantia kexts as-is. They're named "Ab"untia as I've purposely patched them to not conflict with the "Aq"uantia kexts. Just inject the two kexts.

 

[Jazzzny]

UPDATE: Aquantia support is restored for macOS 12.3+ and 13!

For any users, you can add the attached kexts to your config.
For any potential config maintainers, feel free to include them, but please provide attribution.

 

[c+r]

the Abuntia .kext have survived the update from macOS 12.6.5 to 12.6.7 without hiccups. the solution is rock stable.

searching the web for "Aquantia 107" or "10G" and "Monterey" will reveal that this issue has caused many OC and hackintosh users a lot of headaches – and remained without solution to this day. Jazzzny's solution deserves more than just a post reporting success in a thread looking for beta testers that went unnoticed for quite some time.

i will therefore start a new thread to make the solution widely known.

thanks again!

 

[Count--Zero]

Hey Jazzyny, great work! I tried your OLCP 0.6.8 beta on my MP 4.1 flashed to 5.1 with Monterey 12.2:

I can nearly saturate the link to my truenas scale server. It also survived the update to 12.6.7. Really great work. I will try Ventura later and report back.

 

[jdmarlow]

This is very exciting indeed. Has anyone with a McFiver tested with these kexts injected? Curious if it solves the crashing this card has with 10GbE on Monterey. If nobody has I can test mine when I’m back from vacation in a few weeks.

 

[flygbuss]

Hi, noticed this only today. i have a sonnet solo that stopped working on my 5,1 when i installed 12.6 with martin lo's OC package. the only thing that helped was finding an installer for 12.2.1 and a clean install – this brought the 10G PCIe card back to life again. i still have the 12.6.6 installation on a separate drive and would happily beta test your patch. it would be friggin great if it worked – i would like to use 12.6.6 with the latest security updates instead of hoping that nothing happens as long as i'm on 12.2.1… (also, universal control is a nice feature.)

depending on your patch, i would change the config.plist for martin's OC install.

This might be a stupid question but Sonnet claims on their website Ventura compatibility.
Is this not true then and the card won't normally work under 12.6 and above?

Solo10G PCIe Card - Sonnet

 

[Jazzzny]

The driver shipped in 12.3 and newer requires Intel Ivy Bridge or newer to operate

 

[c+r]

The driver shipped in 12.3 and newer requires Intel Ivy Bridge or newer to operate

no longer, thanks to you!

btw. lance did a video on your fix, you're getting your credits!

 

[c+r]

This might be a stupid question but Sonnet claims on their website Ventura compatibility.
Is this not true then and the card won't normally work under 12.6 and above?

Solo10G PCIe Card - Sonnet

i assume they're playing it safe. the Solo 10G PCIe card worked flawlessly under Mojave and up to Monterey 12.2.1 . since the driver for the 107 chipset in the Solo and for the 113 chip in the McFiver use the same driver, there's no reason why the McFiver shouldn't work with Mojave, too.

by saying that both, the Solo and the McFiver are Ventura compatible, they mean that Apple's own driver in macOS supports the cards. (i have no idea why they killed support for pre-Ivy Bridge CPUs with 12.3 as Jazzzny's fix shows the older CPUs to be perfectly capable of running the 10G cards…

 

[jdmarlow]

i assume they're playing it safe. the Solo 10G PCIe card worked flawlessly under Mojave and up to Monterey 12.2.1 . since the driver for the 107 chipset in the Solo and for the 113 chip in the McFiver use the same driver, there's no reason why the McFiver shouldn't work with Mojave, too.

by saying that both, the Solo and the McFiver are Ventura compatible, they mean that Apple's own driver in macOS supports the cards. (i have no idea why they killed support for pre-Ivy Bridge CPUs with 12.3 as Jazzzny's fix shows the older CPUs to be perfectly capable of running the 10G cards…

In my testing today, with the new kexts and code added to OC, the McFiver 10GbE works but only on Monterey. It still shows up as having NO driver in Big Sur. Everything else about the McFiver appears to work pre-Monterey, however.

 

[Dayo]

NO driver in Big Sur.

That is because the kexts are set to only be loaded on 12.3 Monterey and later:

<key>MinKernel</key>
<string>21.4.0</string>

Drop the MinKernel values if you want them to be loaded on Big Sur:

<key>MinKernel</key>
<string>20.0.0</string>

Be prepared to recover from a potential boot failure.

 

[mrkapqa]

is it possible to get Sonnet MacFiver 10G functioning also on Big Sur?
the MacPro5,1 seems less stable with Monterey, thanks.

 

[jdmarlow]

That is because the kexts are set to only be loaded on 12.3 Monterey and later:

<key>MinKernel</key>
<string>21.4.0</string>

Drop the MinKernel values if you want them to be loaded on Big Sur:

<key>MinKernel</key>
<string>20.0.0</string>

Be prepared to recover from a potential boot failure.

I am not willing to try it at this moment. There might be a braver soul out there though.

 

[c+r]

I am not willing to try it at this moment. There might be a braver soul out there though.

i never experienced any crashes with jazzzny's kext – and i was his guinea pig. the first kext let my 12.6.6 installation hang on post-boot (the desktop was there, but the menu bar didn't load. nothing that simultaneously pressing ⌃ + ⌥ + ⌘ + the power button couldn't cure). the second kext caused no freezes, but loaded too late (after apple's Aquantia driver), and the third was a bull's eye.

it does however puzzle me that the Sonnet 10G Solo card wouldn't work on Big Sur – after all, apple didn't change the Aquantia drivers for macOS 11; the change was only from 12.2.1 to 12.3. you should therefore have no problems using the Solo card on a 5,1 and Big Sur with a bone stock OC package from martin lo.

before giving green light to jazzzny for his kext, i also booted into mojave using OC. of course 10.14 wouldn't load the kext, but even with the kext in the EFI, mojave booted up fine and worked w/o hiccups.

checking Sonnet's technical specs for the Solo 10G (Aquantia 107) and the McFiver (Aquantia 113) however shows a difference: the Solo PCIe card specifies macOS 10.13.6 as minimum OS whereas the McFiver is macOS 12+. is it possible that apple added support for the 113 chipset only with Monterey? they do use the same driver tho.

what happens if you use the McFiver without additional kext, just with the latest OC package (0.9.3 IIRC) – is it visible in the network preferences? w/o Jazzzny's 10G kext, the Solo 10G card booted fine in 12.6.x and showed a green light in the network prefs, but no signal ever left the card. (i realized this quite late because i always had a WLAN connection running in parallel and a 1G connection to the switch as fail safe. i noticed that i had no connection to the web when i disconnected the WLAN and the 1G connection.)

in short: if you have a proper backup, i can't see a reason why you shouldn't try the McFiver w/o kext on Big Sur. if it hangs, press ⌃ + ⌥ + ⌘ + the power button at the same time. this will safely terminate all open apps and shut down your mac safely.

 

[jdmarlow]

i never experienced any crashes with jazzzny's kext – and i was his guinea pig. the first kext let my 12.6.6 installation hang on post-boot (the desktop was there, but the menu bar didn't load. nothing that simultaneously pressing ⌃ + ⌥ + ⌘ + the power button couldn't cure). the second kext caused no freezes, but loaded too late (after apple's Aquantia driver), and the third was a bull's eye.

it does however puzzle me that the Sonnet 10G Solo card wouldn't work on Big Sur – after all, apple didn't change the Aquantia drivers for macOS 11; the change was only from 12.2.1 to 12.3. you should therefore have no problems using the Solo card on a 5,1 and Big Sur with a bone stock OC package from martin lo.

before giving green light to jazzzny for his kext, i also booted into mojave using OC. of course 10.14 wouldn't load the kext, but even with the kext in the EFI, mojave booted up fine and worked w/o hiccups.

checking Sonnet's technical specs for the Solo 10G (Aquantia 107) and the McFiver (Aquantia 113) however shows a difference: the Solo PCIe card specifies macOS 10.13.6 as minimum OS whereas the McFiver is macOS 12+. is it possible that apple added support for the 113 chipset only with Monterey? they do use the same driver tho.

what happens if you use the McFiver without additional kext, just with the latest OC package (0.9.3 IIRC) – is it visible in the network preferences? w/o Jazzzny's 10G kext, the Solo 10G card booted fine in 12.6.x and showed a green light in the network prefs, but no signal ever left the card. (i realized this quite late because i always had a WLAN connection running in parallel and a 1G connection to the switch as fail safe. i noticed that i had no connection to the web when i disconnected the WLAN and the 1G connection.)

in short: if you have a proper backup, i can't see a reason why you shouldn't try the McFiver w/o kext on Big Sur. if it hangs, press ⌃ + ⌥ + ⌘ + the power button at the same time. this will safely terminate all open apps and shut down your mac safely.

My understanding is that Apple only added 113 chipset support in Monterey. Both with and without the new Kext in Big Sur my McFiver showed no driver present. But I never tried to plug in the ethernet cable to see what would happen. I still have my Big Sur boot available so I can look at it when I'm not buried in other work.

 

[c+r]

I am not willing to try it at this moment. There might be a braver soul out there though.

me again. i just checked the info.plist of jazzzny's com.apple.driver.AppleEthernetAbuantiaAqtion.kext there it says:

<key>LSMinimumSystemVersion</key> <string>10.15</string> <key>NSHumanReadableCopyright</key> <string>Copyright © 2016-2017 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.</string> <key>OSBundleCompatibleVersion</key> <string>1.0.33</string> <key>OSBundleLibraries</key>


minimum macOS for his kext is macOS 10.15 Crapalina aka Catalina so you should be safe to use jazzzny's 10G kext in Big Sur.

looking at the code and comparing it to Apple's com.apple.driver.AppleEthernetAquantiaAqtion.kext, i noticed that in Apple's kext, you'll find

<key>IOClass</key> <string>AppleEthernetAquantiaAqtion107</string>

and further down

<key>IOClass</key> <string>AppleEthernetAquantiaAqtion113</string>


whereas jazzzny's kext says only, very laconically

<key>IOClass</key> <string>AppleEthernetAbuantiaAqtion</string>

the funny thing is that lance reports that the McFiver (with 113) works fine with jazzny's kext on 12.6.x, just as it does with my Solo 10G (107) on 12.6.8


i'd like to see the info.plist of the Aquantia kext in Big Sur and compare them to Monterey's. go to

system > library > extensions > IONetworkingFamily.kext and drag a copy of that kext to the desktop.

then rightclick > show contents > contents > Plugins ; grab and pull AppleEthernetAquantiaAqtion.kext to the desktop.

rightclick on the …Aqtion.kext to show package contents, > contents > info.plist

pull that file to the desktop and zip the whole 4 KB and post it here as attachment, pretty please with sugar on top. i want to compare it with the same plist of 10.14, 12.2.1 and 12.6.8 – maybe that tells us something. or mebbe not. who knows.

but nonetheless, you're safe to use jazzzny's Abuantia.kext as it is spec'd for macOS Catalina and up.

 

[Dayo]

it is spec'd for macOS Catalina and up.

The other kext, AppleEthernetAbuantiaAqtionFirmware, has a minimum version of 12.2 Monterey and will therefore not load on BigSur. Perhaps @Jazzzny could clarify why the two have such differing versions. and whether he wants to align them.

 

[Dayo]

BTW. The Aquantia kexts appear for the first time in HiSierra.
The 113 chipset coverage starts at BigSur.

Perhaps @Jazzzny might want to refactor the kexts for support to start at BigSur at least.

 

[jdmarlow]

me again. i just checked the info.plist of jazzzny's com.apple.driver.AppleEthernetAbuantiaAqtion.kext there it says:

<key>LSMinimumSystemVersion</key> <string>10.15</string> <key>NSHumanReadableCopyright</key> <string>Copyright © 2016-2017 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.</string> <key>OSBundleCompatibleVersion</key> <string>1.0.33</string> <key>OSBundleLibraries</key>


minimum macOS for his kext is macOS 10.15 Crapalina aka Catalina so you should be safe to use jazzzny's 10G kext in Big Sur.

looking at the code and comparing it to Apple's com.apple.driver.AppleEthernetAquantiaAqtion.kext, i noticed that in Apple's kext, you'll find

<key>IOClass</key> <string>AppleEthernetAquantiaAqtion107</string>

and further down

<key>IOClass</key> <string>AppleEthernetAquantiaAqtion113</string>


whereas jazzzny's kext says only, very laconically

<key>IOClass</key> <string>AppleEthernetAbuantiaAqtion</string>

the funny thing is that lance reports that the McFiver (with 113) works fine with jazzny's kext on 12.6.x, just as it does with my Solo 10G (107) on 12.6.8


i'd like to see the info.plist of the Aquantia kext in Big Sur and compare them to Monterey's. go to

system > library > extensions > IONetworkingFamily.kext and drag a copy of that kext to the desktop.

then rightclick > show contents > contents > Plugins ; grab and pull AppleEthernetAquantiaAqtion.kext to the desktop.

rightclick on the …Aqtion.kext to show package contents, > contents > info.plist

pull that file to the desktop and zip the whole 4 KB and post it here as attachment, pretty please with sugar on top. i want to compare it with the same plist of 10.14, 12.2.1 and 12.6.8 – maybe that tells us something. or mebbe not. who knows.

but nonetheless, you're safe to use jazzzny's Abuantia.kext as it is spec'd for macOS Catalina and up.

OK I followed your instructions and pulled the requested files out of my Big Sur boot. Let me know what you can see, and if I missed anything give a holler.

 

[Jazzzny]

The purpose of this fix is to resolve support on 12.3 and newer. 12.2 and older already have working Aquantia drivers, so why do you want to add this patch?

 

[Jazzzny]

but nonetheless, you're safe to use jazzzny's Abuantia.kext as it is spec'd for macOS Catalina and up.

The version I built with a Catalina base is non-functional, which is why I upgraded to a 12.2 base.

by saying that both, the Solo and the McFiver are Ventura compatible, they mean that Apple's own driver in macOS supports the cards. (i have no idea why they killed support for pre-Ivy Bridge CPUs with 12.3 as Jazzzny's fix shows the older CPUs to be perfectly capable of running the 10G cards…

macOS Monterey only supports Ivy Bridge machines and newer. VT-D is incredibly important for security, and Apple made a very smart decision to use VT-D in the Aquantia drivers. Technically, all that Apple has done is increase security for all supported machines.