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    PfSense with Axiomtek NA341 Board

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    • K
      kejianshi
      last edited by

      I have weird opinions about what I use for myself.  Here at home I chose the AMD 4800+ box to be my router not because of specs necessarily, although it does run circles around the best/newest atom boards I've worked with.  I used my AMD because that board and PSU have been in use here for many many years and time has proven this particular box to be reliable.  I trust old hardware that I've been using for ages more than a new build that I've not tested with time and use, regardless of spec.  I do think this board would probably be good for people who needed reliability more than absolute throughput, but it is about $20 worth of silicon and plastic.  Hopefully they won't get pricey with it.

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      • D
        doktornotor Banned
        last edited by

        @tirsojrp:

        such slow CPU.

        The CPU is more than sufficient for loads of people. Except those who just cannot resist to make their boxes crawl by implementing things such as snort.  :P

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        • K
          kejianshi
          last edited by

          Agreed.

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          • A
            asterix
            last edited by

            @doktornotor:

            @tirsojrp:

            such slow CPU.

            The CPU is more than sufficient for loads of people. Except those who just cannot resist to make their boxes crawl by implementing things such as snort.  :P

            Just some basics on IDS/IPS

            Firewalls aren't enough to keep some networks safe. Intrusion detection adds another layer of security.

            http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/security/security-features/32141-intrusion-detection-basics

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            • T
              tirsojrp
              last edited by

              I have a Jetway JBC362 with the same CPU and I am aware that the CPU is enough for some tasks.

              In fact I might get 5 of them (NA341) if the reviews are positive and the price is right.

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              • K
                kejianshi
                last edited by

                Yeah - Its a matter of more than spec.  One of my biggest gripes with all things Intel is they rape the public.  You could call it a function of capitalism but its still gouging.  They for sure make the best stuff, but its not sooooooooooo much better to justify their prices.  They are simply too proud of their stuff.  Price per performance definitely goes to AMD big time even with Intel's tech lead.  However, if you are made of money, Intel is the obvious choice.

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                • valnarV
                  valnar
                  last edited by

                  Even in single threaded mode, any Atom will perform an order of magnitude faster than a Geode LX800 processor.  While there is no Passmark score for the older Geode, reports of people on this forum and elsewhere show about 3x improvement in raw throughput..  For those of us where the ALIX board was just on the edge of being useless, that's a nice bump with some extra overhead.

                  If they can get the (total) power consumption down to under 10 watts, that'll be worth it.  If it has the same 25-30 watt consumption of regular Atom boards, it'll be a non-starter as it might require active cooling.

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                  • J
                    jasonlitka
                    last edited by

                    Well, then it will be less than I said.  Soekris is expensive but he fills a niche…  If there's more competition in that area then prices will drop.

                    I can break anything.

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                    • K
                      kejianshi
                      last edited by

                      Does the Atom have the new cryptogryphy routines built into the CPU like the new AMDs and Some Intel chips? 
                      I Don't see it in my list…  AES-NI

                      Geode supports AES hardware acceleration.  How does it compare to a new Atom while crunching AES without the aid of add-on crypt boards?

                      (I'm sure the Atom is a generally better platformer, just asking this one use.  It would have been great to get AES-NI on Atom)

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                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        The Atom will likely be good for ~50Mbps of OpenVPN (AES128). The Alix does ~20Mbps IPSec (AES128). Not directly comparable but gives you an idea.

                        Steve

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                        • K
                          kejianshi
                          last edited by

                          Yeah - Thats a tad bit better.

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                          • O
                            ovi_diu
                            last edited by

                            Hi,
                            I bought this board and I followed the tutorial for embedded computers. I wrote the .img with physdiskwrite but after boot nothing else appear using the console. Using vga I see only colored chars. Any advice will be great, thanks

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                            • stephenw10S
                              stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                              last edited by

                              Exactly which image did you write?

                              Is the VGA connector internal? Did it come with a header cable?

                              Do you see the see the bios output on either the serial console or vga?

                              Steve

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                              • O
                                ovi_diu
                                last edited by

                                I have a 4 GB CF Card

                                I tried both pfSense-memstick-2.1-RELEASE-i386.img  and    pfSense-memstick-serial-2.1-RELEASE-i386.img

                                I connected the monitor using vga cable ( the board comes with integrated VGA connector )

                                I also set same settings ( bts / seconnd ) in bios, serial port adapter and client. I see how appliance boots, I can navigate on bios and that's all

                                Thank you

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                                • D
                                  doktornotor Banned
                                  last edited by

                                  For CF, you should use nanobsd (or nanobsd_vga), not memstick.

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                                  • O
                                    ovi_diu
                                    last edited by

                                    sorry, I was in a hurry
                                    pfSense-2.1.1-RELEASE-4g-i386-nanobsd.img
                                    pfSense-2.1.1-RELEASE-4g-i386-nanobsd_vga.img

                                    I followed this tutorial too : https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/HOWTO_Install_pfSense
                                    I replaced config file ( .xml ) but nothing, same results

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                                    • stephenw10S
                                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                      last edited by

                                      Hmm, I'm missing something. You were able to replace the config.xml file? How did you do that? The box had booted pfSense or you mounted the card in a BSD machine?
                                      If you are getting to the end of the POST messages from the BIOS and then you see nothing from either image on either the VGA or console port then the most likely cause is that the images are not writing to the card correctly. Do you see any errors when writing the image? You could try using the 2GB images instead to ensure they are fitting on the card.

                                      Steve

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                                      • O
                                        ovi_diu
                                        last edited by

                                        Shows me the boot menu F1, F2, and then the message:  "/".

                                        Should be fine if I follow the documentation -
                                        https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Installing_pfSense
                                        "If everything is configured correctly you should see the kernel beginning to load. At systems with VGA the output will stop displaying a "/" at the screen. From that point on all output is at COM1. Please check the bootup process there by using a null modemcable and a terminal program."

                                        This is the last message I have seen on both monitor and serial ( HyperTerminal, Putty )

                                        On writeing the img to CF i had no error messages

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                                        • stephenw10S
                                          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                          last edited by

                                          Ok. Have you ever seen anything on the serial console? Have you proved the connection on some other hardware? Like it says in the doc the standard Nano image switches it's console output to the serial port at that point so your serial terminal setup not working correctly matches those symptoms. That doesn't explain the nano+vga images though.

                                          You are seeing the FreeBSD bootloader though so it looks at though the images are writing to the card correctly and the bios is correctly booting it though so that's good.  ;)

                                          Steve

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                                          • stephenw10S
                                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                            last edited by

                                            Since it's hanging at the 'spinner' you could try these HD mode suggestions:
                                            https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Boot_Troubleshooting#BIOS.2FDisk_Errors

                                            Steve

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