1GB DDR2 667mhz ram

2 GB if able to get, would be better as a base amount of RAM.

Dlink 520tx fast ethernet pci card (VIA Rhine chipset) LAN interface

Please have a look on the FreeBSD hardware support website if that thing is supported.

Realtek RTL8102EL - 10/100 Controller Wan interface.

Please have a look on the FreeBSD hardware support website if that thing is supported.

http://ark.intel.com/compare/59063,50496

There - that'll do it

Quickly as I don't have a lot of time:

1. You do need a switch, but I don't know how many ports you need based on your email. I like Mikrotik switches and have a CCR226 but I think it'd be overkill for you.

2. Wifi - http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquiti-Networks-Enterprise-System-UAP-AC-LR/dp/B015PRCBBI/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1460977697&sr=1-2&keywords=ubiquiti+unifi+ac would probably be a better suited access point, it has wireless AC so will be quicker with devices which support it.

3. If file copy speeds are topping out around 10MB/s there is something wrong.  You might have network cards on autodetect speed - this sometimes sets it down to 100Mb/s unnecessarily.

4. If you're going for gigabit, then you need decent specs, please search the forum here, there's a lot of discussion about what will and will not run 1 gbit.

Final Results:

Test 1 - No routing both machines on same subnet
                Time (Seconds) Speed (Mbps)
Pass 1 41.69                   858.9325603
Pass 2 80.43                   445.2181827
Pass 3 41.01                   873.1747973

Test 2 - PCs on different subnet PfSense doing the routing across vlans

Time (Seconds) Speed (Mbps)

Pass 1 45.28                   790.8325627
Pass 2 45.68                   783.907584
Pass 3 55.7                     642.8886614

Test 3 -  Cisco 2821 Router inserted and it is handling the routing between the two subnets

Time (Seconds) Speed (Mbps)
Pass 1 44.36                 807.2339594
Pass 2 44.12                 811.6250779
Pass 3 44.94                 796.8157196

Summary - What I did here is take out the high and low of all tests and then compared test 2 and test 3 against test 1 (which is switching performance)

Performance Hit
Test 2 8.73%
Test 3 6.02%

Summary :

Switching is faster than routing (duh!), but the Asics in the Cisco Router allow it to perform at nearly the same level as my PfSense Firewall with higher end hardware. From the results here we can see that the Cisco router has about 2% better routing performance which in my mind is well worth the trade-off of what PfSense gives me! I have done nothing in-terms of optimizations which could bring PfSense even closer to my Cisco Router, and like others have stated if I put a NIC with custom silicon the gap may get even closer. The purpose for this test was not to prove one platform is better than another, I always wanted to see something by way of charts with various hardware with some numbers for people to make some decisions for what is best for them.

Lastly , the CPU in my PfSense firewall went from 1-2% load to 10-13% when routing across vlans, which at first scared me because a couple of routing streams going across vlans could be a big hit, so I decided to add simultaneous transfers which did not bring the CPU above the 10% - 13% load (Nice!)

I have a zotax ri531 with Realtek NICs and it works great. No ideated for me so far. Home use.

If you hear a new high-pitched, almost inaudible whine from an electronic component which has stopped working, chances are a capacitor has gone bad. Fortunately, with a modicum of skill and patience, most are readily user replaceable

Thats right, but in normal and also really common a capacitor is drying out over the years of work and then
it is failing based on that circumstance. You can surely feel free to let someone solder some solid caps on that
place and they will go for a really longer time without no problems. But if one of that if then also failing too, that
are not the things the OP is talking about in my opinion, that are things that would be solved surely fast by using
better or common laptop PSU or solid caps for longer life. See Apple or Nokia there are not even or typical
cheap brands and have failings like other vendors too.

Is it safe to buy (and use) MyDigitalSSD MDMS-SB-016 instead of msata16d? Are they really the same?

APU2C4

Debian 8.4

Linux apu2 3.16.0-4-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.16.7-ckt25-1 (2016-03-06) x86_64 GNU/Linux

I still do not have any pfsense results (I am still playing with it in VirtualBox, and I am still not convinced about pfsense right now), but here are some performance numbers from Linux.

# gnutls-cli --benchmark-ciphers Checking cipher-MAC combinations, payload size: 16384     SALSA20-256-SHA1 39.57 MB/sec     AES-128-CBC-SHA1 67.64 MB/sec     AES-128-CBC-SHA256 37.11 MB/sec     AES-128-GCM 0.41 GB/sec Checking MAC algorithms, payload size: 16384             SHA1 92.43 MB/sec           SHA256 43.06 MB/sec           SHA512 38.80 MB/sec Checking ciphers, payload size: 16384         3DES-CBC 4.48 MB/sec     AES-128-CBC 0.23 GB/sec     ARCFOUR-128 76.71 MB/sec     SALSA20-256 67.65 MB/sec

with 6.3W total power consumption during this test.

# openssl speed -evp aes-128-ecb  aes-128-cbc  aes-128-gcm type            16 bytes    64 bytes    256 bytes  1024 bytes  8192 bytes aes-128-ecb    127544.98k  406525.93k  656512.60k  749048.83k  792521.39k aes-128-cbc    124649.83k  175624.04k  214096.38k  226685.61k  230045.01k aes-128-gcm      64513.34k  165438.55k  247261.70k  282979.33k  295043.07k type            16 bytes    64 bytes    256 bytes  1024 bytes  8192 bytes rc4              97220.57k  130829.63k  143616.68k  146905.90k  149889.02k des cbc          12226.79k    12978.73k    13191.42k    13242.37k    13254.66k des ede3          4833.95k    4937.05k    4954.88k    4959.57k    4961.62k blowfish cbc    22437.34k    25266.43k    26045.61k    26310.31k    26359.13k aes-128 cbc      16068.08k    17115.71k    17509.46k    44544.68k    45140.65k camellia-128 cbc    20475.77k    31573.53k    36410.03k    37942.95k    38466.90k aes-128-gcm      64770.55k  165564.91k  247574.61k  282806.27k  295458.13k aes-128 ige      15734.23k    16539.99k    16828.84k    16869.38k    16867.33k

with power usage 6.3W during this test.

Also I got a mSATA drive 16GB SSD from PC Engines, and it is fast. ~350MB/s write and up to 410MB/s sustained sequential read. Power usage 7.4W when doing read using dd bs=64k of=/dev/null.

Power consumption is around 5.6W (with power factor 63%) when idle (and PSU essentially at the room temperature!), even with cpufrequency governor set to performance and 1GHz all the time. 5.0W at idle, when using ondemand governor (600MHz on all cores). All with only one Ethernet port active right now. Power factor improves to 70% during load at one core (with usage around 6.3-7.5W depending on a test).

root@apu2:~# sensors k10temp-pci-00c3 Adapter: PCI adapter temp1:        +53.4°C  (high = +70.0°C)                       (crit = +105.0°C, hyst = +104.0°C)

at idle, but I would need to recheck if my heatsink and thermal adhisive is correctly attached, because it is little hot.

I done some ethernet tests again, and I was able to get sustained 101MB/s downloading ubuntu iso files from Internet over IPv4 to /dev/null (with other router doing NAT and probably being a bottelneck). Average 90MB/s. At about 44% CPU usage (out of 400% available), most spend in kernel. Power usage 6.7W during that test.

Running 4 instances of burnK7, power usage 7.4W (power factor 65%). Temperature stays at around 62.0 °C after stabilisation after few minutes, with my room around 25.6 °C.

All tests with upper cover not mounted. With cover mounted it might right be few degree.

PSU is cold all the time, and I cannot even feel it warming up at all even during stress tests. Voltage regulators, converters, coils at the board are only little warm during stress test, and you need to touch them to feel any temperature out of it, and it was low all the time. Capacitors do not warm at all.

The board is essentially noiseless, but if I try really hard, I can hear some hiss / whine (both during load and when idle, with a little bit different spectrum). It is extremeally low in volume tho. With cover put on, it would be impossible to hear.

I am positively impressed so far.

And dmidecode, lspci and lsusb for curious

# dmidecode # dmidecode 2.12 SMBIOS 2.7 present. 7 structures occupying 306 bytes. Table at 0xDFFB7020. Handle 0x0000, DMI type 0, 24 bytes BIOS Information Vendor: coreboot Version: 88a4f96 Release Date: 03/07/2016 ROM Size: 8192 kB Characteristics: PCI is supported PC Card (PCMCIA) is supported BIOS is upgradeable Selectable boot is supported ACPI is supported Targeted content distribution is supported BIOS Revision: 4.0 Firmware Revision: 0.0 Handle 0x0001, DMI type 1, 27 bytes System Information Manufacturer: PC Engines Product Name: apu2 Version: 1.0 Serial Number: 123456789 UUID: Not Settable Wake-up Type: Reserved SKU Number: Not Specified Family: Not Specified Handle 0x0002, DMI type 2, 8 bytes Base Board Information Manufacturer: PC Engines Product Name: apu2 Version: 1.0 Serial Number: 123456789 Handle 0x0003, DMI type 3, 21 bytes Chassis Information Manufacturer: PC Engines Type: Desktop Lock: Not Present Version: Not Specified Serial Number: Not Specified Asset Tag: Not Specified Boot-up State: Safe Power Supply State: Safe Thermal State: Safe Security Status: None OEM Information: 0x00000000 Height: Unspecified Number Of Power Cords: Unspecified Contained Elements: 0 Handle 0x0004, DMI type 4, 42 bytes Processor Information Socket Designation: Not Specified Type: Central Processor Family: Pentium Pro Manufacturer: AuthenticAMD ID: 01 0F 73 00 FF FB 8B 17 Signature: Type 0, Family 22, Model 48, Stepping 1 Flags: FPU (Floating-point unit on-chip) VME (Virtual mode extension) DE (Debugging extension) PSE (Page size extension) TSC (Time stamp counter) MSR (Model specific registers) PAE (Physical address extension) MCE (Machine check exception) CX8 (CMPXCHG8 instruction supported) APIC (On-chip APIC hardware supported) SEP (Fast system call) MTRR (Memory type range registers) PGE (Page global enable) MCA (Machine check architecture) CMOV (Conditional move instruction supported) PAT (Page attribute table) PSE-36 (36-bit page size extension) CLFSH (CLFLUSH instruction supported) MMX (MMX technology supported) FXSR (FXSAVE and FXSTOR instructions supported) SSE (Streaming SIMD extensions) SSE2 (Streaming SIMD extensions 2) HTT (Multi-threading) Version: AMD GX-412TC SOC                              Voltage: Unknown External Clock: Unknown Max Speed: Unknown Current Speed: Unknown Status: Unpopulated Upgrade: Other L1 Cache Handle: Not Provided L2 Cache Handle: Not Provided L3 Cache Handle: Not Provided Serial Number: Not Specified Asset Tag: Not Specified Part Number: Not Specified Core Count: 4 Characteristics: None Handle 0x0005, DMI type 32, 11 bytes System Boot Information Status: No errors detected Handle 0x0006, DMI type 127, 4 bytes End Of Table

PS. 123456789 is real serial number. oops.

lspci

# lspci 00:00.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1566 00:02.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 156b 00:02.2 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 16h Processor Functions 5:1 00:02.3 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 16h Processor Functions 5:1 00:02.4 PCI bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Family 16h Processor Functions 5:1 00:08.0 Encryption controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1537 00:10.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB XHCI Controller (rev 11) 00:11.0 SATA controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SATA Controller [IDE mode] (rev 40) 00:13.0 USB controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB EHCI Controller (rev 39) 00:14.0 SMBus: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SMBus Controller (rev 42) 00:14.3 ISA bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH LPC Bridge (rev 11) 00:14.7 SD Host controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SD Flash Controller (rev 01) 00:18.0 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1580 00:18.1 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1581 00:18.2 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1582 00:18.3 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1583 00:18.4 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1584 00:18.5 Host bridge: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1585 01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03) 02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03) 03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection (rev 03) root@apu2:~# lspci -vt -[0000:00]-+-00.0  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1566           +-02.0  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 156b           +-02.2-[01]----00.0  Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection           +-02.3-[02]----00.0  Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection           +-02.4-[03]----00.0  Intel Corporation I210 Gigabit Network Connection           +-08.0  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1537           +-10.0  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB XHCI Controller           +-11.0  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SATA Controller [IDE mode]           +-13.0  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH USB EHCI Controller           +-14.0  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SMBus Controller           +-14.3  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH LPC Bridge           +-14.7  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] FCH SD Flash Controller           +-18.0  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1580           +-18.1  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1581           +-18.2  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1582           +-18.3  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1583           +-18.4  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1584           \-18.5  Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Device 1585 root@apu2:~# lspci -vtn\ > ^C root@apu2:~# lspci -vtn -[0000:00]-+-00.0  1022:1566           +-02.0  1022:156b           +-02.2-[01]----00.0  8086:157b           +-02.3-[02]----00.0  8086:157b           +-02.4-[03]----00.0  8086:157b           +-08.0  1022:1537           +-10.0  1022:7814           +-11.0  1022:7800           +-13.0  1022:7808           +-14.0  1022:780b           +-14.3  1022:780e           +-14.7  1022:7813           +-18.0  1022:1580           +-18.1  1022:1581           +-18.2  1022:1582           +-18.3  1022:1583           +-18.4  1022:1584           \-18.5  1022:1585

lsusb

# lsusb Bus 001 Device 002: ID 0438:7900 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Bus 001 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub Bus 003 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0003 Linux Foundation 3.0 root hub Bus 002 Device 001: ID 1d6b:0002 Linux Foundation 2.0 root hub root@apu2:~# lsusb  -tv /:  Bus 03.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/2p, 5000M /:  Bus 02.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=xhci_hcd/2p, 480M /:  Bus 01.Port 1: Dev 1, Class=root_hub, Driver=ehci-pci/2p, 480M     |__ Port 1: Dev 2, If 0, Class=Hub, Driver=hub/4p, 480M

cpuinfo

# cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 vendor_id : AuthenticAMD cpu family : 22 model : 48 model name : AMD GX-412TC SOC stepping : 1 microcode : 0x7030105 cpu MHz : 1000.000 cache size : 2048 KB physical id : 0 siblings : 4 core id : 0 cpu cores : 4 apicid : 0 initial apicid : 0 fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid level : 13 wp : yes flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl nonstop_tsc extd_apicid aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq monitor ssse3 cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 movbe popcnt aes xsave avx f16c lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy abm sse4a misalignsse 3dnowprefetch osvw ibs skinit wdt topoext perfctr_nb perfctr_l2 arat cpb xsaveopt hw_pstate npt lbrv svm_lock nrip_save tsc_scale flushbyasid decodeassists pausefilter pfthreshold vmmcall bmi1 bogomips : 1996.14 TLB size : 1024 4K pages clflush size : 64 cache_alignment : 64 address sizes : 40 bits physical, 48 bits virtual power management: ts ttp tm 100mhzsteps hwpstate cpb [12] [13] ...

I commented on mSATA drive details in another thread: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=109970.msg612649#msg612649

Then I believe a C2558/C2758 will do the work for OP.

Supermicro Xeon D-15x8 (Broadwell-DE)

Yep its an really amazing platform, it would be a really pfSense bomb.

@BlueKobold:

This Supermicro Superserver is based on an Intel Atom C2758 board.
Often some default or optimal setting should be changed.

The IPMI Port is often configured to be the spare WAN Port if the real WAN port is failing, this should be turned off The IPMI Port should be get a static IP address to get connect from outside. The bypass mode of the Intel i354 LAN Ports should be also set off!

What else you want to know about this boards BIOS settings?
There is in normal no issue with and all should be fine?
Did you got errors?

Where do you see these settings in the bios? I don't see any of these in my board's bios settings.

naaa, i forgot to grab that startech cable from work today :o  but the board is out at the moment anyway gunna solder a usb port on tonight.

I will do, i was on that page the other day actually full of good info.

I was looking on wiki and there are 3 types of wiring for handshake null serial cables lol looks like i might have to buy a few.

I'm going to get some x1 pcie ribbons, x1 pci graphics card, x1 pcie sata controller sil3132 chipset for freebsd ? and a ssd.

I've already put 2gb ram in and 2.27ghz cpu usual mods. did you try the freedos bios image to see if it booted without the serial hooked up with putty?

Aaron

Unfortunately there isn't a way to hardcode that. It's entirely up to the probe order of the USB ports. You might be able to control it somewhat by using ports on different controllers on the host, if you have them, or maybe put one on a hub, etc.

About 10 yrs ago (was still pfSense 1.0/1.1 at that moment), I built a dual WAN with 2 x 5M ADSL for my office with 150-200 persons.
I used Pentium 4 with 1GB SD ram, the trick for this network setup is the Squid, without it 2 x 5M will saturate quickly and the internet becomes almost unusable. So for OP's i3 is already more than enough

@SoupDragon:

Hi all

This is my new pfSense build (the old one was a 1u Supermicro P4 box), hopefully documenting this will be useful/interesting to someone. I'm running on UK ADSL (13/0.92). Modem is a DrayTek Vigor 120 v2. A small 5 port Netgear Gigabit switch shares the connection. Wireless is supplied by a Linksys WRT54GL running the Tomato firmware.

Requirements:

Small. Low power consumption (~ 25W). Reliable.

Parts:

Lian Li Mini-Q PC-Q07 chassis in silver.
ASRock Server motherboard AD2550R/U3S3 (Atom D2550, 2x Intel gigabit 82574L)
Kingston 2GiB DDR3 RAM
Kingston micro USB storage drive (boot drive)
Antec EarthWatts 380W PSU

Various Pics:

The router is named after the NASA capsule communicator (or capcom for short).

One gotcha when booting from a USB stick is that you need to set kern.cam.boot_delay=10000 and make the change permanent.

Hi, I'm interested in this board as well, did you perform iperf test? I want to know the actual max. throughput, from old post it seems to be ~650Mbps but that was before 2.2 (no multi cpu support) and hope to see better performance with new pfsense version

@mattlach:

Unless you have a need to keep the networks on each of those ports separate from eachother, you'd be better off buying a cheap switch (netgear GS105 for $24 maybe?) connecting the switch to a single LAN port and connecting everything else to that switch and leaving your two empty ports empty, than you are trying to mess with multiple LAN ports on your pfSense box.

Performance wise even a very low end switch like the Netgear one linked above will perform leaps and bounds better than trying to bridge LAN ports.  This is not a pfSense thing.  This is a "the way networks work" kind of thing.

Even if power consumption is your main concern, using an actual switch for switching is a better idea.  Bridging or routing to multiple lan ports is going to cause extra CPU load on the pfSense box, probably costing you more in power than using a switch would.

Faster, less power, less complicated setup.  There really is no reason to mess with multiple LAN ports - unless of course - you absolutely need separate LAN's, which outside of complicated enterprise setups, most people never do.

@TheRiceKing:

Then I guess my Intel quad NIC card is an overkill for my pfSense box. I got the PCIe Intel GB quad card under $50 because I though I would need it in order to do other fun stuff while I learn networking.

Thanks again.

Unfortunately, yeah.  if I had caught you before you bought hardware, I would have recommended sticking with a cheaper dual port NIC.

That's not to say that quad ports don't have their uses.  I use one in a very busy virtualized server using link aggregation as a cheaper (and very limited) alternative to 10gig ethernet.  The quad ports are fairly sought after though.  You might be able to sell it, replace it with a cheaper dual port, and buy yourself a nice switch with the leftover money :p

You made a lot of great points. I appreciate you taking the time to explain all the very valid points. I agree on putting performance, simplicity, and efficiency at the top of the list.

Thanks again.

SanDisk "Extreme" (red) or the Transcend industrial grade (green) ones with 4 GB should be really nice.

N2930 build for < $250

I'm thinking that this should be enough:

1. SG-2220 coupled with the internal WiFi card
2. Draytek Vigor 120 (for ISP dialing)
3. Gigabit Ethernet switch

It will be enough pending on this input. Other wise if you want to install many packets and or
service must be running such Snort, Squid, pfBlockerNG and ClamAV or HAVP I would say the
SG-2440 is the better option.

With WiFi and pfSense it is not so easy to answer, from what I was pulling out of this forum and
another German forum is the following; "If got it working inside you will be happy and get some benefits
on top of other solutions, if you get it not working often it comes a huge amount of problems besides".

If ac WiFi will be a must be or in the near future you should go with an external WLAN AP.
You could also take other antennas that will be longer and stronger then the mostly smaller
and lamer ones.

2 x 13 dBi DiPol beam aerial or beam form with a longer wire and an magnetic feed planar, dish or flat antennas for stationing mounting

The cards will be also really interesting that you will insert.
The most common here in Germany I was saw that are this ones;

Compex WLE200NX a/b/g/n miniPCI Express Radio Card SR71-E Hi-Power 802.11 a/b/g/n miniPCI-E Modul (UBNT)

What is now better your consumer router or the miniPCIe card is not to answer from our side.
Here are other well working chipsets. Link