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I'm trying to build a newer version of the msk driver as it was recently (22 Jun) patched to fix a long standing stability issue that caused it to 'lock up' when it's receive buffer was filled under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.

Thanks for the thanks.  I'm back to a gmirror RAID and using the CF for backup, since I'm using Squid, Squidguard, Adzap and Snort and need real disk for that.  And I like seeing the disk lights blink. :D

@unregistered00: On obtain the IP Address Automatically, the PC's Network Connection indicates "Acquiring Network Address" or something like that then a yellow warning triangle pops up. When I do the "Use the Following IP Address using the Default Gateway, the network connection becomes normal but I still can't log-in to the PFSense GUI. The yellow triangle  can appear to indicate that there is no internet access even when the local connection is working correctly. Check what the statos og the connection is, you may find that pfSense has correctly assigned the ip address. When you assign the address manually the connection always shows up as OK as long the cable actually connected. This does not indicate that the address or gateway are set correctly. Steve

Zimbra is falling short of my needs Being something of a Zimbra 'evangelist' I'd just like to know where it fell short, and invite you over to the Zimbra forums to see if we can't change your mind…

The embedded/ Nanobsd version of pfSense has it's output set to serial console instead of VGA.  You will need to use a serial cable and adapter (the MCP20 seems to have internal serial headers only) to configure it. Alternatively, you will need an internal HDD and do a full install.  Or do a full install to CF card for that matter.  This will enable VGA console.

@wallabybob: @Cry: I've had (so far) no problem with Jetway, including a box that's been running 24x7 for a few years now. Same for me. Same here.  Been working great for almost three years now and not a single problem with it. Darkk

I have a fitPC2i running 2.0 RC1 embedded (I bought the fitPC2i with the 8G SSD), this works perfectly, no rebooting problems at all. It might be new firmware in the fitPC. John S.