Supermicro X9SBAA-F
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So will this just be a matter of time before the pfsense team get this working?
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Unfortunately I have found no other motherboard that has 2x Gigabit and IPMI. And it is passively cooled. An Enterprise Router costs also good 400 euros. Since this is really comparatively cheap and open source.
Thanks for the link. When I'm at home tonight, I'll write the IMG file on the USB stick. I'll report back if it worked.
Today I setup a system with SuperMicro X7SPE-HF-D525 which has DDR-3, IPMI and dual Intel LAN.
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That Board is flex-ATX.
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DTX actually.
The X7SPA-HF-D525 is the ITX with IPMI
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I also have the Supermicro X9SBAA-F motherboard and want to use it as Dedicated PfSense machine.
Using the current latest version 2.0.3 x64 .iso I am not able to install it on the machine.
During the boot process the USB keyboard works, but when the liveCD loads, there is no support for USB3.0
so I can not use the keyboard to fill in the blanks.So I tough using IPMI would solve the keyboard issue. But no luck.. I can control the bios via IPMI remote console, but can not use this to input keys when PfSense is loaded.
So default install is not a success.Then I tried the "dirty" way of install. I grabbed a laptop to put the pfsense-harddisk in it, installed pfSense with success.
At the end of the installation pfsense wants to reboot, at that point turn down the system and put the HDD on the Supermicro board. When powering on the system, It will boot until it asks if I want to setup VLANS.
Of course I can not use the USB-Keyboard and IPMI, so I am not able to setup the basic settings like IP, WAN/LAN.
I am like 4 key input away from web access. At that point, the rest of the config goes trough the webinterface.I have an XML config file, of my old PfSense machine. Is there a way to use the CLI to copy this config to a location?
I know this is not the optimal way to install PfSense, but I want to run and test the software.I also experimented with visualization based on "Proxmox". But I think this will not benefit security.
Maybe there is a way to compile your own custom pfsense image with the config file on it. I have to look in to it.Anyone got any tips or progress with this motherboard, please keep this threat alive!
If I made any progress I will post it here.Thanks guys!
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During the boot process the USB keyboard works, but when the liveCD loads, there is no support for USB3.0
so I can not use the keyboard to fill in the blanks.How about temporarily adding a PCI card with USB 2.0 ports?
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Doesn't work.
Have you tried with an old PCI SATA controller?
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Indeed, I also was thinking about that solution. Badly enough I don't have any laying around anymore.
Momentarily I'm going to use this machine with Proxmox. I still have to do some research on linking the physical interfaces to the PfSense VM.
I want to use the 2 onboard nics for WAN & LAN. And I put an extra PCI NIC in the machine for all other VM's.If I made any progress I will post it here or make a new thread for Pfsense&Proxmox
Thanks for the help! -
Would be nice to have X9SBAA-F hardware supported.
More and more ppl are starting to buy the X9SBAA-F because it offers so much for so little power. -
I have tested PfSense 2.0.3 x64 in a Proxmox VE 2.3 Virtual Machine.
Using VMBR0 and VMBR1 for WAN/LAN.
Throughput is about 30MBit and CPU load is about 70%. (4 threads)
I think it's not very efficient to run a FreeBSD based VM on a Linux host.
Although it should work, it does not perform great.Perhaps there are some performance tweaks that I can apply to Debian based "Proxmox"
For now I would rather host PfSense physically on this nice hardware! -
Changing the PfSense-VM's CPU type to core2duo speed's up boot times in Proxmox.
It does not preform better with WAN/LAN speeds though.I should probably resume this conversation in the "Virtualization installations and techniques" section.
For now I will try a PCI-USB card for USB-Keyboard input.
Strange thing is.. This board supports IPMI, witch can be used to remote install and control the system.
The IPMI web interface provides you with a java-based screen for remote access.
There is also an option for adding a virtual keyboard for use with mouse inputs.
This works in the BIOS menu's and on a physical Debian install.When booting PfSense, this keyboard does not respond to any input anymore. Witch is strange.
Anyone got lucky with this board yet? I would love to read it here ;)
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I have not had any luck as of yet with this board ( X9SBAA-F ).
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I would normally get this error when I had a bad/failed hard drive.
Can you use a FreeBSD LiveCD or gparted and format the HD and then try to install it? At least it will help with the mount pathing as well if you still get the same error.
Also, http://www.supermicro.com/products/system/1u/5015/sys-5015a-ehf-d525.cfm has dual NIC's and IPMI, works with pfSense 2.0.x as well.
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Before I install PfSense I usually use a GParted CD to format the disk to a UFS filesystem.
Momentarily I'm running "Nas4Free" on a USB stick on this Supermicro board witch is based on : FreeBSD 9.1-RELEASE
Everything work great. To bad PfSense is not working properly yet on this board. Although it's a small problem.If I could fill in the basic's like,
- Would you like to use VLANS
- Setup WAN
- Setup LAN
- Setup LAN DHCP
The rest can be done trough the web-interface. Can I compile a PfSense CD with my own config-file so no input is needed?
Maybe to much trouble for such a small thing. But this board is perfect for running PfSense 24/7. -
Has there been any update on this board working with pfSense? I'm itching to get it…
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Im not sure if this board supports freebsd 8.
I tried asking on freebsd.org but go no response.
I hope there is support for it soon , This board is a great little thing.
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Small update.
I did bought a cheap VIA based chip PCI USB2.0 card. That did not work. Mailed with SuperMicro support.
They told me to get an Belkin F5U219 2+1-port USB 2.0 PCI Controller Card.Found one secondhand. Not the exact same type but this one also works. Got an NEC controller chip.
Not that you want to spoil such a good board running Windows, but no need for custom images to install Windows OS on this board.
Tested Windows 7x64 and 2008R2. No problem getting it working.ESXi 4.1 and PfSense is are a different story.
Error ESXi 4.1: unable to find a supported device to write the vmware esxi 4.1.0 image to
(Tested hdd with ext2 ext4 and unformatted. All same error)Error PfSense: (well known error)
vfs.root.mountfrom=cd9660:/dev/iso9660/pfsense
vfs.root.mountfrom.option=ro
mountroot>At this "mountroot>" i am not able to give any input. Keyboard was detected (Dell Multimedia keyboard)
Had this problem on many other systems. Fixed the disk order (IDE master/slave or Sata port) and used GParted to format to UFS.
No luck so far.So the story continues… I will dive in the BIOS to see what I can do.
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FreeBSD makes an update
Then FPsense later uses that to form the Base for the release
So, the FreeBSD OS version and hardware supported is, by necessity, always lagging behind the very newest release of FreeBSD and its hardware support.
So, better hardware is only better if its supported for your purpose, otherwise its an expensive paperweight.
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Today is good news day!
I used my other Supermicro Board (nas4free maschine) to boot with sata ODD and installed PFsense to a flashdrive and a Delock SATA DOM.
I buyed a Delock SATA PCI USB card (has one internal port). And a Risercard. Now the following test results:
Booting from onboard USB: Booting possible, but same mount error as we know.
Booting from PCI USB card: No Boot support by BIOS - flashdrive ignored.
Booting from SATA DOM and PCI USB card for keyboard worked!How can I capture an image of this Sata DOM for you all? Now I'm running ipfire from USB. It has got SSH access and IPMI. How can I capture an image of the sata dom using the ipfire started from usb flashdrive?
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I have received an answer from the FreeBSD form.
It seems i was wrong in my first post. I will quote what was replied.SirDice Moderator: "If there is any chance of an update it'll be with the next pfSense. The latest pfSense is built on FreeBSD-8.3, and although that version is still supported (until April 2014) no new drivers or functionality will be added to it. It only receives security updates. Whatever the pfSense people do to it is beyond our control. "
I suppose we need to wait and see what happens.
I vote for hardware support for this board in the near future , I understand this is a big ask and I can accept that this may not happen for a while.
cheers