https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=48591.0

The interrupt storm is a known FreeBSD issue: PR 156596. The high interrupt rate on EHCI USB starts when disconnecting the monitor.

yes the atheros version is AR8161/8165. what could i possibly do t tweak the system so that it doesn't freeze on me and might a be able to use. I was planning to use the 32GB for squid caching and squid guard filtering and i do have 2x2TB drives that i would like to take advantage of. i have also acquired 2x320GB drives from an older windows vista install. i hope that i could be able to solve my freezing errors is more than anything at this point. i get freezing errors even when i enable the atheros dwa-542 pcie nic. i am running the latest possible of 2.1.1-PRERELEASE for amd64 and it seems a bit more stable than 2.1-RELEASE but i i have the 2.1.1 and still when enabling the wireless it still freezes up and then i have to manually hard reboot the pfsense box. Any help with my freezing issues is always appreciated. i don't mind trying 2.2 whenever a snapshot is available and i have just purchased a subscription and maybe if possible, where might I be able to download the current alpha build/snapshot for 2.2? I am able to dedicate some of my time to bug testing such as submitting some bugs. i don't mind reinstalling if needed as i am not doing this for a company just at home for myself and a few others so no huge amount of users less than 10 right now.

I just went with reinstalling Pfsense and now it runs fine again. Not sure what caused this at first, but I can consider it resolved (at least for now). We can close this

Ok. At any appropriate moment I will tear down the firewall and install the GPU again. =)

Wireless hardware support in pfSense is limited, it should be much better in 2.2. If you are looking for a wifi card to use as an access point in pfSense your best bet is an older Atheros model, one that is 802.11G only. Some Ralink USB adapters can also work well. See: https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Supported_Wireless_Cards Steve

I had same issue when re-installing from USB stick. Though I did found a solution which worked for me. 1. Boot up from USB 2. Don't press any keys (ex. "i" for installer) etc… Just let it continue until you reach pfsense menu. 3. Press"99" for installing on disk 4. Don't choose "quick install" - Run manual. 5. Follow the steps now, it shoud continue till end and not stuck at 36% now. I tried different combinations, and this worked for me.

The MAC I was referring to is on the pfSense bridge0 interface. It hasn't changed though which makes me think that's not the issue. Though you say the Windows box creates new connections every time pfSense is rebooted? It's hard to see but most of the connections on your Windows box appear to be TAP VPN connections rather than real Ethernet interfaces, does it actually have more than one real interface showing? Are those other interfaces something you have put there? The only other thing I see that's different between your bridge setup and mine is that my bridge does not have an IPv6 address. Could this be an IPv6 issue?  :- Try setting the bridge interface to have IPv6 configuration type: 'none'. Edit: The member interafce are also set to IPv6 type 'none'. I can't see why that would be an issue to be honest but maybe something is trying route via IPv6. Steve

We use Supermicro Atom based boards with a mirrored pair of SATA SSDs for web-caching.  We don't use a CF for configuration, we just store the conf on the ZFS mirror.

You had issues because you don't know what your doing, there is no no issues with changing IPs via the cli other than when you do so it asks for a gateway.. Which seems to confuse the shit out of users.. Matter of fact I just changed my dmz interface via the cli, bing bang zoom working just fine.

Given the error I'd suspect the problem is with the CD – either the drive or the disc.

That combination of board and NIC had previously worked under 2.0.X? Odd. Steve

@Phil.Davis & pagaille Thanks for answering my questions guys, it turns out I do have a bridge mode option on the modem ;D All thats left now is build :)

1. Choose the regular install. However by default that will use VGA/keyboard for its console so…. 2. Install to the HD on a different machine, one that has a CD drive, keyboard and monitor!, and configure one interface. Boot into pfSense and enable the serial console. Move the HD back to the Alix (I confess I'm not familiar with any quirks the the ALix might have regarding HD booting) and boot, it will fail at the mountroot> prompt. Point it at the correct path for root then edit the fstab once booted. 3. You can but why do you want to? You're going to want DMA if you're using the drive as a squid cache. 4. Some machines have an issue booting from large partitions but most don't. Stick with the standard partition scheme unless you  have good reason to change. I've never tried that on an Alix so maybe there's some some workarounds to be done that I don't know about.  ;) Steve

No I don't think an older version would help. Even if you got past the locale command the next step is to compile the kernel modules for the virus scanner and that's definitely not going to work. You would have to compile the modules on a FreeBSD 8.3 machine and copy them across to pfSense which may be possible. Steve

I have bridged the interfaces and it is running (with squid as well at the moment) not sure if the VPN will work but will give it a go

so this actually seems to be a nano related upgraded; i had similar behavior when upgrading another non-alix box running nano. in any case, i just decided to wipe and start fresh with 2.1. all is well.

^^agreed get a real nic eg. intel pro server nic,  imho easier to setup and  in the long run easier to maintain and troubleshoot

pfSense uses that hostname and domain for the system itself. The domain gets used in various places like DHCP and DNS as the default domain. The FQDN of the firewall is used to validate that the referer matches when using a hostname, and also for DNS rebinding checks. The hostname is also used in various aspects of logging. There are probably dozens of other little places it gets used in various daemons or config files or graphs, but it's best to always have it set right.

There is no supported upgrade path from embedded 1.2.x to anything. You have to rewrite the CF. Even to go from 1.2.2 to 1.2.3 you had to rewrite the CF. 1.2.3 and later use NanoBSD which does support upgrades. You can take your older configuration and restore that to a newer 2.0.x or 2.1 in most if not all cases.