Ah, now that makes sense and I can see the value in a test environment.  I use VMWare much the same way (with all the security issues it brings).

I have one of these systems as I thought it was a good idea at that time to build a carp cluster with it (miniitx systems in a travla c147 case, see http://linitx.com/viewcategory.php?catid=160&pp=160 for the case and other similiar solutions). However if one system fails (hardware) and you have to replace it you will have to remove the complete case from the rack which makes the redundancy kind of useless.

@sullrich:

Sorry, you are on your own on this one.

I think MC doesn't do any harm, does it?

BTW, before I made a fresh install of 1.2final I did a backup of my config. Restoring that now gives a blank webGUI on HTTP what was httpS previously. The only thing that helps is a 'factory defaults' from local console. I can repeat this.
Anybody willing to look into that config.xml for me?

Or more likely you too have some dodgy hardware.  Random reboots are usually related to hardware problems, including a lack of sufficient cooling.  Sometimes they can be down to driver problems, but that's pretty uncommon these days.  Actually, with the core drivers in any modern OS, including FreeBSD, it's pretty much unheard of.

Some time back Toms Hardware posted a useful list of free and commercial tools to allow you to identify faulty hardware.  If you're having intermittent problems it gives you a good starting point for diagnosing the fault(s).

It depends heavily on what you're doing.  Pushing 10 Mb/s of 1400 byte packets has a completely different impact on the system to pushing 10 Mb/s of 140 byte packets.  Pushing that traffic through 2 interfaces will have a different load than pushing it through the 10 interfaces.

Also, the use of IPSec or other VPNs will have an impact.

I've tested it now (something to do in the easter :D).
When I tried installing from the ISO, it failed to detect it, so I put in a lowly 3COM which it found immediately.
I just shut the firewall down yesterday, and tried putting in the IBM card.
When it booted up again, it detected it perfectly, asking me to assign WAN and OPT1.
A bit of a difference there, between the ISO installation and bootup for some reason.

Well it works, so I'm a happy camper, very nifty tiny firewall, with three NIC's now, all made from 'scrap metal'  ;D

I tried a couple quick tests yesterday, my interfaces are as follows:
3com PCMCIA WAN
onboard Intel LAN
D-Link PCMCIA WIFI

From WIFI to LAN I max out at 22Mb/s, which is pretty close to the max throughput of a 802.11g network.
From LAN to WAN I can get at least 5.2Mb/s, because that's the speed of my internet conenction, I haven't tried putting another computer on the WAN side to run a throughput test.  I'll try it later today if I have some time.

My only real complaint so far is that either the 3com or intel NIC don't support ALTQ for traffic shaping.

Search the forum. I remember a thread where somebody put up some nice images how the network looks with vlans, logical and wired view. It should give you a good starting point.

I'm successfully using the CM9 with pfSense. You should try a googlesearch wether it's supported in freebsd 6.2. If yes it is supported in pfSense 1.2.

I think the Dell systems which allow RAID see Sata0 and Sata1 as members of RAID.  If you have another Sata port ie…Sata2 try switching the CD-ROM to that port.  I know this is true with the Dell 755's.

Mark

If you are trying to control power to a device you can use this device.  I have a dialup modem attached to a PC as a backup which allows me to login and I can power cycle my devices remotely.  Allows you to control up to 8 devices independently via the web interface.  They have extra modules for different functionality like pinging an IP and if there is no response for an extended period of time it will automatically power cycle the device.  The price is $109.00  which is nothing in comparison to the other devices out there!  Fan is a bit loud so I would recommend keeping this in a server room or a garage, basement…etc

http://www.digital-loggers.com/lpc.html

The via should also be lower on power consumption than the celeron I think.

Well, as we can see in this case the Compaq guy could be right on this interrupt thing!

good to hear! Thanks

The speed I get is not my main concern, I just don't want to flood the CPU with interrupts with normal daily stuff like transferring files on the network.

Thanks for the support guys, now I just have to wait for the delivery truck. ;)

Is there anything in the system log that might indicate the problem?

Regardless, you'll probably have to go to the FreeBSD lists to get this addressed since it seems to be a bug in the bge driver with that particular hardware. We don't modify drivers and don't have the knowledge or resources to fix issues with them unfortunately. freebsd-net@freebsd.org would be the list I recommend.

I have a very similar setup.  I have sbs with 5 pc's at one site and a second server that has ten pc's there.  I use pfsence with pentium d with 1 gb of ram on a dell 440 with two gb adapters.  It works great.  I have a 3 meg by 512k adsl connection.  it works great.  I am using web, untangle, ftp internal and external, IPSEC on top of all that  and I forgot snort.  I loive pfsense.

I have a loaner dual pIII 450 with 256 meg of ram and have carried it serveral place and used it when a customer firewall fails.  They love it.  it really fast.

Need libmbpool.ko file. Can you pls help to download it.

Thanks

Hitachi's are known to work, 4GB

Now, i must say, that after i install pfSense 1.2 FINAL, as i describe here http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,6774.0.html, i found that Router Board 44G function properly.

So this combination of hardware and software works great:

Mainboard: Intel D201GLY - bios LY66210M.86A from 1/4/2008 - http://www.intel.com/products/motherboard/D201GLY/index.htm
NIC card: RouterBoard 44 G - http://www.routerboard.com/rb44.html
1U rack case - http://www.emko.cz/emko_cz/produkty/skrine/miniitx/em-161.html

pfSense 1.2 FINAL