Thanks for the info.  The price was way too low.

GP

Well it has no problems dealing with the 16 MBit/s Line…
I have not a lot of rules but it fits perfectly for home use if not
also for a small office ;-)

Thanks.

You make no mention of what CPU you're planning on using, or how much memory, or what you're planning on doing on your network.

If you'll be doing little more than email and web browsing and want a firewall, just about anything will cope with your bandwidth.  If you're going to be running lots of packages, making heaving use of torrents, VOIP and gaming then you'll need something with a higher spec.

The links that Perry provided contain lots of useful information.  Read and make up your own mind.

Thanks for the link.
RC

Just a bump to let anyone who wants to know, the Intel Pro/1000 PT (82572GI) works PERFECTLY in 1.2.1, even in my PCIE x 16 slot  ;D

@Skud:

@valnar:

Um, wrong.  Any PCIe slot can be used for anything.

In a perfect world I would agree with you, however we don't live in a perfect world and motherboard manufacturers don't always come clean….

There is a very well documented issue with PCIe x16 slots NOT supporting anything other than graphics cards. If this is the case you will usually see the manufacturer refer to the slot as a PEG (PCI Express Graphics) slot. If you look at the logical chipset layout of that MSI board you will see that MSI says the slot is a PCI Express x16 GRAPHICS slot. Also, the manual calls it a PEG slot (page 61). These references would seem to indicate that MSI is being clear that this is a GRAPHICS slot. It may or may not work.. It would be nice if it did though.. ;)

Now... That being said they also have an option to limit the x16 slot to x1 mode "for increased compatibility" (page 61). This may be what you need. You'll be limited to x1, but that's more than enough bandwidth for a single gigabit link and slightly bottle necking two gigabit links..

There are also many other documented cases where users have tried to use storage controllers and NICS in x16 slots only to not have them work. Check out the forums over at 2cpu.com in the storage and network section to see what I'm talking about.

So, long story short. Any PCIe slot cannot be used for anything.

Riley

Thanks Riley, I was too tired to write out the explanation:-)

It's ALIVE!!!

I just used the latest 2.0 snapshot and it appears they've added support for the NIC..

Thanks!!
Riley

I have the exact same setup as above.. and I was able to install with a external dvd unit.

The only problem is that I'm having  BAD HDR length issues in the logs (http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,12372.0.html)

So it seems the Poweredge R200 machine doesn't work well with the freebsd 1.2.1 release :(

Some of the common things to do:
Select the option where you disable ACPI
Upgrade bios
Disable unnecessarily features in bios sound, modem etc
Go IDE with cdrom and disk
http://devwiki.pfsense.org/BootTroubleShooting
http://www.freebsd.org/releases/7.0R/hardware.html

Hey David,

I'm running the multithreaded version of pfsense 1.2RC/beta (latest snapshot) could the multithreaded pfsense cause these errors? :

http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,12372.0.html

There are TONS of x1 PCI-E gigabit NICs on the market.

@Askersundslan:

Thought i search all the forum and wiki for this question but oblesvliy i missed it anyway.

It's on the pfSense web site and not in the forum or wiki.
Here's the link, Perry's quote originates from:
http://www.pfsense.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=52&Itemid=49

How interesting! I checked the man pages, and the RTL8110S is listed, but not the RTL8110SC which this board has
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=re&sektion=4&apropos=0&manpath=FreeBSD+7.0-RELEASE

However, if your saying that the board works with QOS enabled, under the new version of BSD, I am happy to assume the chipsets are close enough and go ahead and order one
Cheers for the updated information!

thank you very much so far.

are there any other hardware suggestions with individual components? maybe a barebone configuration or minipc?

Can anyone confirm or deny that this particular card is supported by FreeBSD 6.2?

@dotdash:

Hifn makes the 255, which is a PCIe card based on the 8155 chip. I'm not sure if it's supported in FreeBSD though, and they are significantly more expensive than the PCI cards.

This is live and in production now.  To be clear for the next poor guy that tries to get pfSense working on an 865 chipset mobo with a modern hard disk, you can leave the drive in enhanced mode with bus mastering turned on etc. (basically the bios defaults).  The problem doesn't lie with DMA, enhanced or legacy modes, etc. with this mobo.  The problem is with how the HD geometry gets reported or detected during the install with both 1.2x and 1.3x.  When I entered a CHS manually during the install, all the problems I had with booting disappeared.

The CHS I used was:

77545/16/63

This will give you approx. 40GB of usable space on your HD which is more than enough for pfSense.  The drive I'm using is actually 160GB, but I could care less :)  My goal was to configure the box with a modern HD that I knew I could count on for at least a few years.

-Rich H.

@Bril:

Thanks for the info guys, Yes I am buying new, and I'm thinking of just going 100% Intel hardware from the looks of it. I understand that those old 15 dollar junkers are great for applications like this, but those aren't exactly professional looking. I would like to be able to market these to people I do networking for once I get one running myself and get all the kinks worked out. It seems like 1.2.1 is the best release, I have not really checked the forum about it yet to see what is broken at the moment, but if there are problems, I'm confident that based on what I see comparing the 6.2/6.3/7.0 hardware notes that the hardware should maintain across all 3 releases.

Cheapest Intel Motherboard with 2x PCIe - $64.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121323

Cheapest Intel Processor for the Motherboard - $124.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115052

Cheaper Memory 2x 1GB Kingston CAS lat. 4 - $55.98
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820134065

Cheapest Name Brand SATA 3Gbps HDD - $38.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136195

2x Intel NICs - $173.98    These 9400's come with standard and LP brackets.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106010

Cheapest 2U Rack mount Chassis - $79.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219023

Cheapest Name Brand 300W Power Supply Unit - $29.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817194023

Anyone see any reason why this wont work?

Price tag so far: $568.90 + Tax ~$46.94 =$615.84 + Shipping + Shipping Tax so basically this is a ~$650.00 version of a $2500 firewall.

Uh, yeah. When putting components together for consumers, instead of cheapest, cheapest, cheapest…. Try Works, Functional, Quality. If I were to find out I bought ANYTHING from someone like you, I would punch you straight in the face. Thief!

What a great idea ! I would also appreciate this include.

Very nice!

Ive wanted to do something similar due to space constraints I have here.

:)