@TheBlast:

A good book about VLAN's will do tghe job.

From memory the wikipedia article on VLAN is pretty good source.  Maybe you won't need a book after reading that.

Indesman: Check out this thread
http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,39595.0.html

To other people searching for monitoring CPU temp on Atom boards and having similar issues as presented in this topic - click the above link too.

bummer. oh well, thanks for the reply.

He don't have free ethernet ports

no  tengo mas puertos ethernet disponibles por eso estoy usando el usb

I think is easy, just add other eth adapter or if you dont have any free slot, get some cheap manged switch and use VLANs

@jahonix:

Every time I used a Netgear device in the past I ran into troubles (failing HW, feature not working right, fan blown, too hot, too loud, IIRC)

I use HPs 1710, 1810 or whatever they call them now or Cisco/Linksys for managed switches
and cheap TrendNet or TP-Link unmanaged switches.
No issues so far. (I even use a TrendNet Green GBit switch to connect my VM host machines to the disk array, but don't tell!  8)

That's interesting, I've never had an issue with small Netgear switches.  I've never used their rackmount units though, I stick to Dell (3xxxP and 62xx switches) in that area.

Actually, I take that back.  i had one GS108T that rebooted every time you touched it.  That turned out to be a defective AC adapter though.  Once I replaced it the switch was fine.

I have best results with these server grade assemblies:
SuperMicro
I think they are discontinued but can be easily found on eBay an such sites.

Together with an SSD this makes a quite yet powerful machine.

In that case just start off with whatever hardware you have to hand and see how it goes.

Steve

TP-Link TL-WN321G is supported in pfSense 1.2.3 and later.
Tenda W311U is supported in pfSense 2.0 RC3 and later snapshot builds.

Both are USB wireless NICs capable of acting as Access Points. I've had good results from both of them in my two floor house. Where I live both of these are available for under US$15 at current exchange ranges.

Considering the cost of these supported devices its probably not worth your while attempting to get the Realtek devices working.

It's definitely com5. Prolific are the usb-serial manufacturer.

If your image has not installed correctly on the card then you won't see anything at 9600.

The default serial speed for the Alix BIOS is 38,400.
Try setting putty to 38,400.

You can change the bios serial speed to 9600 to match the output from pfSense.

Steve

I'm trying to build a newer version of the msk driver as it was recently (22 Jun) patched to fix a long standing stability issue that caused it to 'lock up' when it's receive buffer was filled under some circumstances, on some hardware. That hardware happens to be what is used in the Watchguard Firebox X-E series appliances. I currently work around the problem by running the interface at 100Mb but that is not an option for many users.
I was using the linked post as a template as you say. Since it was an example building a NIC driver for FreeBSD 8.1 from newer sources I thought it had a fair chance of success.

I already started a thread about this here. Perhaps it would be better to continue that.

Steve

I'd use an onboard GigE port for VLANs and WAN and use an expansion card (10/100 even) for LAN.

I suspect you won't need the full GigE capability for WAN.

On my "production" pfSense I have rl0 as the parent device for a VLAN to a DMZ and a VLAN on which I run pppoe to my ADSL modem. So WAN is pppoe over VLAN on rl0. The VLAN capable switch strips the VLAN tags from traffic to the modem so the modem doesn't know it was accessed over a VLAN.

The size of the motherboard doesn't really have anything to do with it, not unless your case was designed to fit only cards that are the same or smaller than the mobo.  In any case, I'm not sure it matters, both the LP PT & ET cards are ~6.6" long, and that case says it supports up to a "half-length" card, which traditionally has meant ~6.75".

@stephenw10:

You can probably set the value permanently in: System >> Advanced >> System Tunables

That was my next question! Thanks again!

@jimp:

Is your BIOS set to actually power it on, or just to retain the last status? If you have a "power on" option instead of a memory/last-state choice, try that.

Another higher-tech way around such a problem is to have a lights-out management card (DRAC, iLO, etc) that lets you power on the box remotely if it was powered off on purpose (say, by a connected UPS signalling a clean shutdown)…

Yeah but looking at the pics it's not a server class motherboard.  However, most modern NICs and BIOS you can wake it up via LAN. Look up Magic Packet.  In his case since his entre setup is hosting a wireless network it's going to be a little hard to do that.

Hmm, odd that it seems to work better under 1.2.3. Possibly a VM problem?
Like most of these USB modems it has two operating modes. The first mode, when you first plug it in, it appears as a USB cd-rom drive with the drivers on it. Under Windows you would then load the drivers and that triggers the hardware enter the second mode where it appears as a modem.
FreeBSD has some code to trigger the second mode automatically but only for devices it knows about. The method for doing this varies by device, for some it is as simple as ejecting the virtual cd-rom.
It may be that under 2.0 the device is set to the second mode where it then fails to load.
Try ejecting the cd-rom and see what happens. Unfortunately there is no eject command in pfSense so you'll need to copy it across from the appropiate version of FreeBSD.  :(

Steve

Edit: Looks like the eject method probably doesn't work for this hardware.

Hello,

I do not spécial action for install Pfsense on this board, I can boot on USB Key for update or to put new version on Pfsense. All Works, USB, SATA, Network.

All the USB key is not bootable.

Right for IQ7.

For other possible problème see http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,34118.msg176918.html#msg176918

Regards

JN

If you're just doing a router on a stick and never have a need for any more NICs it's not so bad. I would suggest searching on FreeBSD 8.1 and that version of the mini, likely more people have tried that (given single NIC firewalls are rare) and you should be able to find info there. If it works on 8.1, it'll work on our 2.0 release.

@cmb:

Every drive I've seen works, you have to use option 3 "Boot from USB" at the first boot prompt on some hardware.

I've tried booting both using normal "option 1"and using "option 3", neither has worked for me. Do I need to download the "pfSense-memstick-2.0-RC3-i386-20110621-1650.img.gz" version" when using a USB device?

@jazza2010:

Just found this post, as I was searching around, after having purchased the ADSL card found here http://linitx.com/viewproduct.php?prodid=12181

Originally when I ordered the ADSL card I thought (wrongly) that it was the traverse/viking card, which I'd seen on other posts, but it isn't
However I  have just got it configured and working with pfSense-2.0-RC1.
It works well with a UK ISP, with the card configured as 1483 Bridged LLC and PPPoE.

So pfSense does support the Realtek RTL8100CL chipset.
(The card is configured via a web GUI - doesn;t seem to use a telnet configuration like the viking card).

You just confirmed what I have been wondering for a while, thank you. I will probably buy one for myself now.

Can I ask which UK ISP you are using? If it is the same as mine and you have confirmed it works, then all the better.