USB Cable modems
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Does pfSense support USB cable modems. I've been running IPCop for a quite a while, and I was looking at pfSense and wanted to try it out. The ethernet port on my modem was fried by lightning last year. It still works fine through USB. I've been using it through USB with IPCop and haven't had any problems. IPCop auto detects it. I looked in the HCL and didn't see any cable modems listed.
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In fact this is not supported. Only Ethernethardware is supported (PPPoE, Static, Dynamic, PPTP WAN).
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USB networking cards suck. Why anyone wants to use these items is beyond me.
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USB NIC's do suck, but running my cable modem through USB instead of ethernet has been fine for me. USB is faster then my ISP and that's basically all the matters. There hasn't been a drop in performance at all over ethernet. It has also saved me from spending $80 - $100 on a new modem.
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Here in Portugal you can buy a D-Link 302T for 25€ (VAT included) and it is not USB…
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Problem with usb is that they do not transfer a lot of data and can be problematic.
But hey, if it works for you then roll with it.
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Here in Portugal you can buy a D-Link 302T for 25€ (VAT included) and it is not USB…
It's about $80 - $100 here for a decent cable modem, and most of them have both ethernet and usb. Mine was hooked up through ethernet until the cable box outside my apartment got stuck by lightining. When it happened it fried the ethernet port on the cable modem and the network card that was in my IPCop router. That's when I switched to using usb. It has worked fine. Cox cable gives me 4MB down 512k up. USB can work up to 12 mb/s This is faster then my connection so it works. I run several computers and VoIP through my cable modem and have never had a problem.
I wanted to check out pfSense. It looks like a really kewl project. I have been keeping my eye on m0n0wall for a while now, but I wanted something that was less embedded. pfSense fits that perfectly. If/when they have USB cable modem drivers I'll probably switch.
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Does FreeBSD even support it? When there's an in tree driver, we can add it to our driver list - we aren't going to ship binary blobs or apply non-BSD licensed vendor patches to make this work. FWIW, usb ethernet adapters do work, if the cable modem presents itself as a supported usb ethernet adapter, then it should "just work". Give it a try, worst case is that is just won't work and you've cost yourself 15 minutes of play time on the livecd (alot less than this discussion has taken I'm guessing).
–Bill
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Does FreeBSD even support it? When there's an in tree driver, we can add it to our driver list - we aren't going to ship binary blobs or apply non-BSD licensed vendor patches to make this work. FWIW, usb ethernet adapters do work, if the cable modem presents itself as a supported usb ethernet adapter, then it should "just work". Give it a try, worst case is that is just won't work and you've cost yourself 15 minutes of play time on the livecd (alot less than this discussion has taken I'm guessing).
–Bill
It is autodetected as a USB network card in IPCop.
I'll give it a try when I get home.