On Apr 20, 2014, at 5:32 PM, Volker Kuhlmann <list0...@paradise.net.nz> wrote:
> I've been running pfsense for many years (and been very happy with it) > on scrapped PCs with a Sun 4-port Ethernet PCI card because I need 5 > Ethernet ports. > > Now freebsd dieing on the hme driver effectively turns those cards into > scrap and I'm stuck. What are alternatives now? > > Are there any other 4-port cards that are supported by pfsense in > practice (not just in theory), that are also affordable? You’ll need to define “affordable”. You’ll also need to state if you’re looking for PCI, PCI-x or PCIe cards. > The power consumption (and box volume) of scrapped PCs is not optimal, > and I've been looking at moving to a small single-board. Soekris was > always underpowered and overpriced IMHO, and PCEngines underpowered, > until they released the exciting APU series recently. They all only have > 3 Ethernet ports though, which is the stopper here. > > What mPCIe Ethernet cards are supported by pfsense that people can > recommend? We’ve run some experiments with various Intel-based cards in a NUC (we’re building a rack mount for them). They work, but it’s not an inexpensive solution. > Are there any USB Ethernet adapters that actually work with pfsense? > Reliably? I am looking for reports from those who have tried, not the > freebsd supported HW list - that list is too long and not really > trustworthy (I have a USB wifi adapter which runs for 10min then makes > pfsense kernel panic). WiFi isn’t recommended until at least pfSense 2.2, if then. > The frequently recommended option of using VLANs may look good for > larger commercial networks, but just buying a VLAN capable switch costs > more than a suitable pfsense box and brings the power budget of the > combination to the same level as a scrapped PC - with the latter winning > hands down on cost. You can pick up the 8 port HP switches (e.g. 1810-8G aka J9802A) for less than $100 these days. No fan, so noise-free. < 8W maximum. Real SNMP implementation, supports 802.1q, jumbo packets, etc. When we lived in Hawaii, (expensive power), I used to run a 24-port version of this (1810-24G aka J9803A). Still no fan, 24 10/100/1000 ports, of these can support SFP. Current price is less than $200 on newegg, and probably way more switch than you need. These days my “home lab” (the test lab at work) has a dedicated room, dedicated AC, several racks, and is connected via redundant 10Gbps links, with a backup fiber link at 100Mbps, so my home network is just an APU, a 16-port dumb switch, and a couple 802.11 APs. If I decided to upgrade the Grande connection to 1Gbps or, when Google fiber arrives, I’ll probably replace all that with an SDN (OpenFlow) setup. Jim _______________________________________________ List mailing list List@lists.pfsense.org https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list
