Ok, so I picked up 2 of these Antsig AP581 USB adapters as they were listed as working under the wiki for my IPFire project box as it only has one standard gig e adapter.
I’ve found that when using them, either as the green or red interface int doesnt pass on/receive DCHP requests, and gets an APIPA address.
I can manually configure the port and it does connect with no problems, but i do need it to work for DHCP as that is how my ISP provides my static IP.
I’ve tried it with various computers and it exhibits the same issue across the board. It is running through a USB C to USB A adapter which should have no impact (and I have tested with just USB C connection)
I’ve begun to think perhaps the cable type is actually causing it? Maybe it needs to be a crossover cable vs a straight through.
IPFire should never get an APIPA/IPv4LL IP on red except there is a misconfigured DHCP server that leases such IP’s. If it get no DHCP answer it should not assign any IP. (noipv4ll is set in dhcpcd.conf)
I have seen problems with some switches that need very long to establish a link. In this case the DHCP sometimes run in a timeout. (default 30s)
You can increase it by adding
timeout [seconds]
to /var/ipfire/dhcpc/dhcpcd.conf
Crossover is not needed but also work because every gigabit nic and switch support auto MDI-MDIX (or both ends violate the standard)
Yeah I might try that but the fact that even testing the usb Ethernet adapter on my Mac exhibited the same issue - with both usb adapters I tried funnily enough (bother are the same antsig)