PM sent.

Whether they are on-board or not the NICs must be connected via some bus or other. Looking at the spec sheet:

Network Controller:  Embedded NC7782 PCI-X Gigabit Server Adapter

It appears the on-board ethernet is also PCI-X. It then comes down to the bus speed as to whether or not it would be faster.
I would say it's not much different.

The NC7782 is a Broadcom based NIC which are generally well thought of under FreeBSD, second only to Intel.

Steve

Any update on this?  ;D

Yes they work…. I'm using it with 2.0.1 / 2.0.3 AMD64 version on a Supermicro MB, which also have 2 of those "onboard"

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=em&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+8.1-RELEASE

http://www.supermicro.com/aplus/motherboard/opteron4000/sr56x0/h8scm.cfm

Most packages are available to some extent under NanoBSD.
You will probably need to flash the bios using a CF card anyway (though you can use the included card for that). I would recommend at least trying the nano images first as they are so much easier.

Steve

I think I'm going to go with the Supermicro X9SCL+-F mobo with the onoard dual Intel 82574L gigabit controllers, in the COOLER MASTER Elite 120, and the picoPSU-150-XT + 150W Adapter Power Kit. To cover up the gaping hole in the back of the case for the regular atx ps2 psu, I found a guy who does backplates with 4 pin din connector, a fan hole, and grill: http://outsidethestb.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-about-backplates-covers-for.html. This seems to be the right way to go, especially because this motherboard and case will be good for future expandability. What do you think?

There are a number of hardware revisions of that chip. I think some of the early ones are supported I think but anything released recently is not. All are supported by 2.1 though. There are also some updated drivers that support more revisions, but not all, for 2.0.X:
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,58150.0.html

Steve

ah boo, missed this :(

let me know if you come across another unit that you would like to sell :)

I have to say that you are trying to mitigate a DDOS attack at the wrong end of your connection. It doesn't matter how good at filtering your firewall is if an attacker can hit you with more than 100Mbps of traffic it's going to fill your connection.

Steve

@rumpelstilzchen:

Just an update:

It definitely does not work with C602 and Raid, also not with Version 2.1 of pfSense. And it seems to hate SSDs with this controller either. I could not manage to boot with a Intel 60 GB SSD 520 Series.

So looks like the software is quite limited on new hardware.

There is no difference between a SSD and a regular hard drive as far as the OS is concerned so it's got to be the way the controller is handling them.  As I said, that controller is a pain to work with.

Ok, I give up.
I gave a shot to OpenWRT AA (so linux 3.3.8), and FYI, I had to include additionnal firmware (rtl8168e-3.fw), that I didn't needed before owning this RTL chip. It is related to these 8111EVL as they are seen as RTL8168evl/8111evl whereas older NICs are seen as 8169/8110. I don't know if it is required for some offloading, or if it is a "fix" to harware issues.
Used the exact same commands without reproducing the issue.
Btw, linux driver seems to have had problem with this chip before being fixed: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14962

I'm definitly thinking about bsd re driver having an issue with this chip (more likely the other way around, but you get the idea :)).

Problem solved!

I changed the USB <–> RS232 Adapter from Profilic based to FTDI based and it worked like charme.

Michael

@tester_02:

PF sense is not supported on ARM.

Drag.

Oh well, thanks.

@the_greenest_noob:

thanks everyone for your insight, i'll try to test the laptop, given that the atom way looks underpowered for what i aim to do.

any hints on a known working pmcia card would be very appreciated.

CardBus or ExpressCard?

Used an Intel Pro/100 CardBus in DELL Inspiron 5100 until recently switched WAN to VLAN on the integrated Broadcom 440x.  LAN is native physical.

I got the same problem with a dell Switch.  Everything will works if you disable the POE from the port.

Thanks, your post help me find it out!

Benoit

Arrived today. Thanks again for your generosity.