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    Pfsense does not recognize 4GB ram

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
    17 Posts 4 Posters 11.7k Views
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    • W
      wallabybob
      last edited by

      The 64 bit version of pfSense (still under development) will support use of more than 3GB of RAM.

      Depending on your memory configuration and chipset, the 1GB may not be wasted. Common chipsets have two or more channels to memory o they can access multiple memory sticks concurrently. If you take out some memory because its is "wasted" you will likely end up with reduced memory bandwidth because some of the time you will be able to access memory over one one channel rather than two.

      How much memory do you really think you will need? 512MB is much more than is needed for many applications.

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      • F
        fosiul
        last edited by

        Hi thanks again

        From last 3 weeks i am using pfsense in production environment with 1Gb of memory .
        Since I am using snort for both External and Internal Interfaces, its consuming 85-90% of memory.

        And Some times , browsing gets slow . as Squid+SquidGuard running ( and i set 200 mb for squid )

        so my minimum guess is i will need 2GB of ram.

        but i thought if I will  buy 4GB , as i am thinking i will create 2  VLANs and will put my Inhouse hosing project  under this pfsense router and it might need more memory.

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        • K
          kpa
          last edited by

          Number of channels (dual or single) has nothing to do with the OS's ability to use the memory in 3-4GB region in case of 32-bit operating systems. The memory mapped I/O memory regions that the PCI devices use have to be addressable all the time and just can not be "swapped" away to access the memory hidden beneath them.

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          • jimpJ
            jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
            last edited by

            You could try a 2.0 BETA4 snapshot for the amd64 platform. It can use 4GB and more, so long as your BIOS/MB/CPU support running a 64-bit OS.

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            • F
              fosiul
              last edited by

              HI thanks

              I am using

              SmartValue! DELL™ PowerEdge™ R210 (SV3R210)

              ref :http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&kc=305&l=en&oc=SV3R210&s=bsd&sbc=poweredge-r210

              With 4GB of ram and the cpu is :

              Intel® Pentium® G6950, 2C, 2.80GHz, 4M Cache, Memory runs at 1066MHz Max

              I have few more server of same configuration. and I have installed Centos 64Bit on those

              so which means i would be able to install pfsense 64 bit , is not it ??

              Thanks again for your supports

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              • jimpJ
                jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                last edited by

                It should work then. Just keep in mind that pfSense 2.0 is still BETA, not a release, so there are still some things that may not work.

                Here is a link to an .iso you can use to install it. If you have issues with 2.0, post in the 2.0 board:

                http://snapshots.pfsense.org/FreeBSD_RELENG_8_1/amd64/pfSense_HEAD/livecd_installer/pfSense-2.0-BETA4-20100811-0244.iso.gz

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                • F
                  fosiul
                  last edited by

                  Hi thanks

                  I just need bellow 4 packages to work

                  Snort,Squid,Squid Guard,LightSquid,Bandwidthd

                  is there any known issue with those 4 packages with 64 bit system  ??

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                  • jimpJ
                    jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                    last edited by

                    Snort may not work - I think the others are OK. Squid and SquidGuard worked the last time I tested them.

                    2.0 isn't the issue for packages working, almost all of them are fine there, it's the 64-bit platform that may not have all the packages in order.

                    Remember: Upvote with the 👍 button for any user/post you find to be helpful, informative, or deserving of recognition!

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                    • F
                      fosiul
                      last edited by

                      I am loving pfsense mostly for the snort . it has nice way to block offender by using snort .

                      but you saying, snort might not work with 64bit, in that case i will have to stick with 32 bit, as i really want to use snort .

                      but if you say : snort might work, might not then i will 64 bit a try ..

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                      • jimpJ
                        jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                        last edited by

                        I haven't tried snort on x64, so I can't say for sure. It might be worth trying. It may not work right now, but it will be fixed eventually.

                        Remember: Upvote with the 👍 button for any user/post you find to be helpful, informative, or deserving of recognition!

                        Need help fast? Netgate Global Support!

                        Do not Chat/PM for help!

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                        • F
                          fosiul
                          last edited by

                          Ok thanks
                          I will give it a try

                          and will come back to you on 2.0 Board

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                          • F
                            fosiul
                            last edited by

                            One more thing , i need advise ..

                            is this 64 bit recommended to put in production environment ??

                            if i put this 64bit in production, will there would be any security problem  as this is not tested properly

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                            • W
                              wallabybob
                              last edited by

                              @fosiul:

                              I have few more server of same configuration. and I have installed Centos 64Bit on those

                              so which means i would be able to install pfsense 64 bit , is not it ??

                              Yes, those system should support the 64 bit version of pfSense.

                              @kpa:

                              Number of channels (dual or single) has nothing to do with the OS's ability to use the memory in 3-4GB region in case of 32-bit operating systems.

                              Agreed, my remark about number of memory channels wasn't meant to have anything to do with memory in any particular region it was rather about the consequences of think of some of the memory as "wasted".

                              Consider a system with dual memory channels, four memory slots each with 1GB of RAM. You boot and see there is 1GB "wasted" memory and remove a stick. Now you have a configuration that at best has a lower available memory bandwidth than it did with 4 memory sticks. Even though that memory is not able to be accessed it is not "wasted" because its presence gives higher memory bandwidth than could be seen in its absence. The higher memory bandwidth might be important if the CPU has multiple threads all working pretty hard.

                              The guide for the relatively recent motherboard (ASUS M3A78-EMH HDMI) effectively says a user may have one, two or four memory sticks in the system. The guide for a newer motherboard (ASUS M4A785D-M PRO) doesn't suggest that three memory sticks is a bad choice but mentions that some memory may operate in single channel mode if the memory configuration is not chosen wisely.

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                              • jimpJ
                                jimp Rebel Alliance Developer Netgate
                                last edited by

                                It's a BETA snapshot - so that is up to you. We don't generally recommend them for production yet, but some people use them without problems.

                                There should not be any security issues. There might be a couple missing features or things that don't work quite as expected yet, but those are getting better every day.

                                It's up to what is required for your system. If you must have more than 4GB of RAM, then you will need to use x64. If you can get by with less for now, stick with 1.2.3 and update after 2.0 is released for real.

                                Remember: Upvote with the 👍 button for any user/post you find to be helpful, informative, or deserving of recognition!

                                Need help fast? Netgate Global Support!

                                Do not Chat/PM for help!

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