Custom M-ITX board
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The AES-NI instructions are worthless on pfSense, at least in 1.2.3 and 2.0, as they are not supported until FreeBSD 8.2.
EDIT: Some additional notes:
- There is little point in using the C206 chipset as your choice of CPU would be limited to those with built-in video. You should really be using the C204 and an add-on video chip, Matrox, whatever.
- The 82574L NICs you want are supported in pfSense but the integrated 82579 is not. Are you going to have it disabled?
- Expansion options? Most Mini-ITX boards have one slot. I'd use an x8 PCI-e 2.0 if you can fit it.
I'm running a DH67CL which has the 82579 onboard nic and it's working with no problems.
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The E1220 doesn't have an integrated GPU though. So that board will either need to support booting without graphics or have some form of embedded VGA. Or have bios redirected to serial.
I can't imagine a healthy reason for a firewall to need a GPU, with perhaps the exception of a specialty latent IDS fingerprinting masking system… But even then, really? Save the space for something more useful like an FPGA or backdoor microcontroller. At most, other then storage and network, you're going to want serial and maybe a simple LCD screen for a status device...
Or maybe I've just avoided having to look at the micro/pico ITX consumer CPU boards for so long that BIOS doesn't get sent out to serial by default. World clearly coming to an end... Wow, and even the new Intel embedded dev board has a GPU (http://intel.ententeweb.com/bsps/product_detail.asp?item=DEVBOARD-1-d510) Please world, more haptics, less retina magnets! Keep those fields programmable.
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Update on this custom ITX…...
It was still born during birth......... too bad.
A few of us were pursuing this with vigor. The NRE and 200 boards were covered. The deal breaker ?.......7 months lead time!
Moved on now to use a board designed by someone else ...much easier and less arrows in the head. Now, now...all of you saying "i told you so"....... we tried , we failed, we've moved on.
Now going to use this board.... http://www.commell.com.tw/News/News/News_20110617_LV-67H.htm
the interesting thing is that it has 2 x 82574L NIC's onboard and can take 4 more 82574L NIC's via mini-pcie expansion slots. Since each mini-pcie expansion slot takes a card that has either 1 or 2 82574L's on board it means we can configure the board with either 2/3/4/5/6 82574L NIC's
The board can take 9-24V input OR ATX power...nice!
i3/i5/i7 compatible and up to 16GB RAM ( but 8GB Ram sticks = $$$$$$ so not really practical - better to stick to 4GB Ram sticks)
I think that ticks all the boxes........ up to 6 x 82574L NIC's, 9-24V DC input or ordinary ATX power supply, Sandy Bridge i3 compataible and up to 16GB Ram all on a m-ITX
And its available now...not in 7 months time!!!!
I have 8 sample boards inbound now. Should be here next week. If this works as advised it is my version of the perfect pfsense m-ITX!!
So what are your thoughts on the boards? Updates???? What is the price on them? That does look like the perfect solution depending on the price/functionality/reliability/warranty.
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Got the 8 test boards in. 4Gb RAM SODIMM RAM is fitted…....still no CPU's.
These are 2nd Gen laptop Sandy Bridge CPU's that are needed and i cant find that many places that sell them. I did find what i wanted eventually. Now we sit and wait for funds to clear (international T/T) and then they will be on their way out here.
These boards are very promising. I've searched high and low for Mini ITX boards suitable for running PFsense on. Most all of them had one or two ethernet ports on board. If you wanted ethernet interface 3,4 or more you are forced into using an add on card. Have you seen the prices for an intel 4 port Gbe card !!
To me this board is the closest i have come to finding a commercially available non special order board that fits the bill.
The really special part would be to get the onboard SIM card holder in one of the mini pcie slots working with a 3G modem and addressable as an additional WAN. I've got someone looking into this.
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Will try to get something together tomorrow if time permits - first thing on the agenda is getting the Land Cruiser gear box fixed for the next field trip….. hmm - its not looking good - oil under the car everywhere !
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[HEAVY OT]What else you can expect from toyota?[/HEAVY OT]
seriously i prefer landgruisers over land rovers -
These are 2nd Gen laptop Sandy Bridge CPU's that are needed and i cant find that many places that sell them. I did find what i wanted eventually. Now we sit and wait for funds to clear (international T/T) and then they will be on their way out here.
The really special part would be to get the onboard SIM card holder in one of the mini pcie slots working with a 3G modem and addressable as an additional WAN. I've got someone looking into this.
That's kind of bad news as I was hoping you could use a cheap 1155 Pentium or Celeron in this. Adding a laptop CPU is surely going to increase the cost quite a bit.
Do you want to be able to use a 3G modem just as a fail-safe if the regular WAN goes out?
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These are 2nd Gen laptop Sandy Bridge CPU's that are needed and i cant find that many places that sell them. I did find what i wanted eventually. Now we sit and wait for funds to clear (international T/T) and then they will be on their way out here.
The really special part would be to get the onboard SIM card holder in one of the mini pcie slots working with a 3G modem and addressable as an additional WAN. I've got someone looking into this.
That's kind of bad news as I was hoping you could use a cheap 1155 Pentium or Celeron in this. Adding a laptop CPU is surely going to increase the cost quite a bit.
Do you want to be able to use a 3G modem just as a fail-safe if the regular WAN goes out?
You're probably looking at around $150-200 for one of the "Pentium-branded" chips, around $250 for an i3, $300-400 for an i5, and $400-1000 for an i7, that is assuming of course that you can actually find one.
I usually go to LogicSupply when I need specialty CPUs but their stock on these is limited to a single i5 for $300 and a quad i7 for $470, though they claim that the Pentium B810 will be available on 10/22. Maybe try calling them for alternatives.
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Didn't manage to get photos today since occupied with other issues.
Will try again tomorrow.
I have 8 x i5 CPU's coming in. I bought them for $230ish each IIRC - not too bad.
Thing is, you can either pay around $200 for a mini ITX Atom board with 2 Gb nics onboard and then pay around $420 -470 for 4 x Intel 82574L Gb NICs to get your six Gb LAN ports for a total of about $650
OR
you can buy this commell mini ITX that has 2 x 82574L NICs onboard and then add 2 x mini pcie cards that each have 2 x 82574L NICs onboard to get a total of 6 x 82574L NICs total. The commell board is about $270.00 and the mini pcie cards with 2 x 82574L NICs are about $60 per card. So grand total for the board and 2 x mini pcie cards is around $390. To that you add the i5 CPU at $230ish to give a grand grand total of $620.
So your choice - pay around $650 for a board with an Atom CPU and six x 82574L NICs and your PCIE slot is used up because of the PCIE card that contains the 4 x 82574L NICs
OR
pay around $620 for the latest Sandy Bridge mini ITX board with a 2nd Gen i5 laptop CPU that is optimized for low power and heat output and 2 x mini pcie cards to give a total of 6 x 82574L NIC's AND the PCIe slot on the board is still open and ready for an expansion card of some type - plus i can run this setup on battery since i have the option to use 9 -24V DC input OR an ATX power supply.
Now i realize this may not suit everyone's needs - not everyone wants a min of 5 x 82574L NICs - but i need them so this works for me. As well not everyone needs to run on battery - but i do since i have sites in some very wild and wooly places where the grid power is very unreliable. Since i am going to be running on battery the laptop CPU which is optimized for low power consumption (they are meant for laptops after all) is a big help to me in this scenario. The fact i have an i5 CPU onboard will be a big help if i do decide to run VM's (not sure about this yet) and the QM67 chipset is KNOWN to do VT-d
all in all this board is a home run for me …YMMV
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Any more news on this board? I'm currently trying to spec out a new system and the board you listed does sound like it could be what I'm looking for.