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    PfSense on a Riverbed Steelhead

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Hardware
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    • F
      foureight84 @Okijames
      last edited by

      @okijames Thanks for the reply and confirmation! For now I've been using MLC SSDs (new old stocks that I can find) in ZFS mirror. That should last a long time. I'm not using doing any packet captures, just mostly default logs which is minimal. I was just hoping to be able to use larger drives later on in case I want to turn it into a Proxmox box instead.

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        Okijames @foureight84
        last edited by Okijames

        @foureight84 FWIW Proxmox is even worse when it comes to wearing out SSDs. :)

        That and for whatever reason the 770 (with a Xeon E3-1125C v2 CPU so 4cores at 2.5Ghz) is almost embarrassingly slow at running VMs under Proxmox. I have one stacked with 32GB RAM, running Proxmox, and really disappointed in VM performance. It is so bad, I think something must be misconfigured, but can't find anything glaring.

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        • F
          foureight84 @Okijames
          last edited by

          @okijames haha I thought it would be. It's a pretty old CPU at this point.

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            Okijames @foureight84
            last edited by

            @foureight84 Yup, on the plus side it is a solid/reliable machine. So I use it for a few lightweight things that need to run 24/7 without a hiccup.

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            • stephenw10S
              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
              last edited by

              Hmm, it's not that old. Just how terrible is the performance?

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                Okijames @stephenw10
                last edited by Okijames

                @stephenw10 Reminds me of 486 performance. Then again I'm basing that on my experience with a Windows VM. So maybe the lack of any sort of video card in the system is the real culprit?

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                • stephenw10S
                  stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                  last edited by

                  Could be. Current Windows versions seem to have pretty significant hardware requirements.

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                  • P
                    pantigon
                    last edited by

                    Please help me.....

                    root: smbmsg -p
Probing for devices on /dev/smb0:
Device @0x10: w
Device @0x32: rw
Device @0x46: rw
Device @0x4c: rw
Device @0x5a: w
Device @0x5c: rw
Device @0x62: rw
Device @0x7c: rw
Device @0x88: rw
Device @0xa2: rw
Device @0xac: rw
Device @0xd2: rw
Device @0xd8: rw

                    What is "smbmsg" code?
                    Thanks.

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                    • stephenw10S
                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                      last edited by

                      What hardware is that?

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                      • P
                        pantigon
                        last edited by

                        @stephenw10
                        This is Riverbed CXA-255.
                        alt text

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                        • stephenw10S
                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                          last edited by

                          The list we had from the file in this thread only lists devices by the motherboard part number like '400-00300-01'. You'll probably need to find that.

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                            Okijames @pantigon
                            last edited by

                            @pantigon I've not tried a CXA-255, but based on the chassis, it might have BIOS control of the bypass NICs like 570/770 boxes. Meaning you won't have to fiddle with smbus settings. Take a look through the BIOS options and search for bypass NIC settings. I don't remember for sure, but I think they need to be set to "disable".

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                              Okijames @pantigon
                              last edited by

                              @pantigon I should have clarified. The LAN/WAN NICs should be enabled, but then disable the "bypass" feature.

                              As a reminder, the bypass feature causes the LAN/WAN ports to act like a wired crossover coupler when the box is powered off.

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                                Okijames @pantigon
                                last edited by Okijames

                                @pantigon I was poking around with my CX-770 today, and the BIOS setting for the bypass NICS should be set to "No Bypass". Your's might be the same.

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                                  lemon-k @Okijames
                                  last edited by lemon-k

                                  @okijames Hi, in my CX-570, I have done the following settings in the bios:
                                  8b7d8fde-23b2-4c13-bd6f-20a45b387dc6-image.png
                                  but it seem to not work in proxmox 7.x
                                  Could you help me.

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                                    Okijames @lemon-k
                                    last edited by

                                    @anonsaber What's not working? Proxmox itself or pfsense inside Proxmox? FWIW installing Proxmox is a pain to install without a video card. What was your process?

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                                      lemon-k @Okijames
                                      last edited by lemon-k

                                      @okijames I have connected GT710 with PCIE extension cable, booted from USB and finished the installation of Proxmox.

                                      It showed that the former two ports worked in proxmox, but the last 4 ports was unavailable . (I just connected my worksation with CX-570 and executed ifup <interface name> on each nic in pve host.)

                                      Then according to this post, I modified the BIOS, re-entered proxmox, but unfortunately these ports were still out of action.

                                      PS: psfence was not been installed or used.

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                                        Okijames @lemon-k
                                        last edited by Okijames

                                        Quick Q for moderators, if you'd prefer we move this conversation to Proxmox forums, I'd be happy to.

                                        @anonsaber Under Proxmox the NICs have interesting names of enpXs0. Going left to right, starting with the Pri port on the front of the 570/770, the NICs are...

                                        enp2s0, enp3s0, enp1s0f1, enp1s0f2, enp1s0f3, enp1s0f4

                                        These should all show up in dmesg. I enabled the NICs (by setting "No Bypass" like you did) before installing Proxmox. I have no idea how/if Proxmox will recognize them when you enable them post-install.

                                        I only use one NIC (enp1s0f1) and I don't think I had to do an if up. Just edit /etc/network/interfaces. Mine is pasted below, and note that I modified from static IP to DHCP because prefer to use DHCP static assignments via DHCP.

                                        cat /etc/network/interfaces

# network interface settings; autogenerated
# Please do NOT modify this file directly, unless you know what
# you're doing.
#
# If you want to manage parts of the network configuration manually,
# please utilize the 'source' or 'source-directory' directives to do
# so.
# PVE will preserve these directives, but will NOT read its network
# configuration from sourced files, so do not attempt to move any of
# the PVE managed interfaces into external files!

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

iface enp1s0f1 inet manual

iface enp1s0f2 inet manual

iface enp1s0f3 inet manual

iface enp1s0f4 inet manual

iface enp2s0 inet manual

iface enp3s0 inet manual

auto vmbr0
iface vmbr0 inet dhcp
	bridge-ports enp1s0f1
	bridge-stp off
	bridge-fd 0

                                        Also note Proxmox uses the bridge interfaces "vmbrX" rather than assigning IP addresses to the physical NICs. My "ip a" output looks like this...

                                        ip a
1: lo: <LOOPBACK,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 65536 qdisc noqueue state UNKNOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/loopback 00:00:00:00:00:00 brd 00:00:00:00:00:00
    inet 127.0.0.1/8 scope host lo
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 ::1/128 scope host 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
2: enp1s0f1: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq master vmbr0 state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:0e:b6:b2:33:f0 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
3: enp1s0f2: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:0e:b6:b2:33:f1 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
4: enp1s0f3: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:0e:b6:b2:33:f2 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
5: enp1s0f4: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:0e:b6:b2:33:f3 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
6: enp2s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:0e:b6:78:06:b0 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
7: enp3s0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 qdisc noop state DOWN group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:0e:b6:78:06:b1 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
8: vmbr0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc noqueue state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether 00:0e:b6:b2:33:f0 brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 10.0.0.10/24 brd 10.0.0.255 scope global dynamic vmbr0
       valid_lft 7065sec preferred_lft 7065sec
    inet6 fe80::20e:b6ff:feb2:33f0/64 scope link 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
                                        stephenw10S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • stephenw10S
                                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator @Okijames
                                          last edited by

                                          @okijames said in PfSense on a Riverbed Steelhead:

                                          Quick Q for moderators, if you'd prefer we move this conversation to Proxmox forums, I'd be happy to.

                                          Probably more relevant there. But this thread doesn't see much action, it's not like everyone has to read it. Not really a problem IMO.

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                                          • L
                                            lemon-k
                                            last edited by

                                            @okijames At first I didn't to do an if up, but when I connect to the network nothing happens.
                                            These is my interface status:
                                            e022820f-46b0-4a7f-891c-6e58994e460e-image.png
                                            and these is my network config file:

                                            # network interface settings; autogenerated
# Please do NOT modify this file directly, unless you know what
# you're doing.
#
# If you want to manage parts of the network configuration manually,
# please utilize the 'source' or 'source-directory' directives to do
# so.
# PVE will preserve these directives, but will NOT read its network
# configuration from sourced files, so do not attempt to move any of
# the PVE managed interfaces into external files!

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

auto enp3s0
iface enp3s0 inet manual

auto enp1s0f1
iface enp1s0f1 inet manual

auto enp1s0f2
iface enp1s0f2 inet manual

auto enp1s0f3
iface enp1s0f3 inet manual

auto enp1s0f4
iface enp1s0f4 inet manual

auto enp4s0
iface enp4s0 inet manual

auto bond0
iface bond0 inet manual
        bond-slaves enp3s0 enp4s0
        bond-miimon 100
        bond-mode balance-rr

auto vmbr0
iface vmbr0 inet static
        address 100.64.10.1/24
        bridge-ports bond0
        bridge-stp off
        bridge-fd 0

auto vmbr1
iface vmbr1 inet static
        address 192.168.1.1/24
        bridge-ports enp1s0f1
        bridge-stp off
        bridge-fd 0

                                            and there is my dmesg logfile:
                                            dmesg.txt

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