Installing pfSense on brand new hardware – no drivers?
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Correct – I need to either find a way to make this work, or find a way to make the old box work... or pack everything back up, take it back to the store, and get a vanilla router.
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OK - You said you had it up to the part where you needed to assign interfaces. Can you get it to that point again? Then get yourself a piece of paper and a pen.
While its sitting there asking you which interfaces you need to set up, you need to plug a cat5 port into your existing router or switch. Then plug the cable into each port on the new machine also, one at a time. Watch the screen on pfsense. It will tell you which interface name went up and then down. Those are the two ports interface names to use. Keep track of which one you want to be LAN and WAN also.
Let me know when you are done there.
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I tried that – I plugged and unplugged back and forth between both ports, and it just sits at the "Enter the WAN interface name or 'a' for auto-detection" prompt. Similarly, when I try auto-detection (leaving cables unplugged until prompted), it doesn't detect any link up event.
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I'd box it up send it back if possible. If not, there is further checking that can be done in the BIOS.
I'd go into the bios and check the advanced setting and the onboard devices (Every bios is slightly different)
I'd deactivate USB3 if possible. Default to SATAII if possible. Also make sure the network cards are turned on.
I've had several instances where boards ship with most features turned off.
Let me know how that goes. Also, you are using version 2.1 right?
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Looks like I might be boxing it up…
I can't disable USB3 or change the SATA mode (only enable/disable each port; I have all the unused ports disabled). I've tried turning on EVERYTHING remotely network-related in the peripherals section, which is resulting in a ludicrously slow boot time because now it's trying to boot on PXE (and timing out of course). We'll see what road this leads down...
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Can you open your current D525 box and post a pic here of the board in the case its sitting in. I want to know if there is space for add-on NIC in either a PCI or PCIe slot and if the case will accommodate it. A D525 is a nice bit of kit and is very capable as a pfsense router/firewall.
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No dice on the boot with options, still doesn't detect any link state change. The NIC status LEDs blink periodically, so there's at least a physical connection… but can't get much beyond that.
http://imgur.com/bbjmjH6.jpg for my Atom box -- don't see any room for a second NIC in there :(
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Thats completely OK - I already know the best way to deal with this, but question… What kind of throughput do you need? How fast is your internet?
Also, what kind of packages do you need to run?
(I like that box - Its really nice - How is that kingspec SSD working out for you?)
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I think our internet connection is 50mbit down/15mbit up, though we're considering upgrading in the (nearish) future.
As far as packages, I'm running pretty near stock. The main features of pfSense I'm concerned with are OpenVPN, and I also run a guest AP (which I throttle, to discourage freeloading neighbors from torrenting etc while allowing legit houseguests to check their e-mail or surf the web). The only package I've actually installed is the File Manager, more out of personal curiosity than anything else.
The Kingspec SSD has been running quite well – on this box I'm running the nanobsd 1g image, so theoretically there's ~15GB of space for the SSD to use for wear-leveling :D
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OK - Your current box is very nice and more than you need for your application. I notice you have wireless on that box. Does that work well for you?
As far as getting you a wired LAN and WAN, all you need is a small managed VLAN capable switch and you will be all set. Then you will have LAN and WAN ports to spare (-; How fast is your port on the box? Is is GB or 10/100?
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Gigabyte GA-Z87N-WIFI :
Uh, that's an Intel i217v which isn't supported.
I don't believe that Atheros chip is supported either. They're both really new relatively speaking.afaik nobody has the i2xx series working yet. If you're deadset on using that GB board, just stick a ~20$ nc360t in it until the appropriate drivers are ready.
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Yeah - But returning the mobo and just buying a vlan switch is so cost effective and flexible… Will work sooooooo well also.
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It's GigE… would this switch do? http://www.microcenter.com/product/393070/JetStream_8-Port_10-100-1000_Gigabit_Managed_Ethernet_Switch_with_2_SFP_Slots
The wireless has worked fine for me... we don't do a whole lot on wireless (mostly web surfing and e-mail... our most demanding application is probably YouTube), and the guest AP thing is nice to have.
afaik nobody has the i2xx series working yet. If you're deadset on using that GB board, just stick a ~20$ nc360t in it until the appropriate drivers are ready.
Unfortunately said NIC is not available locally, and I need a solution ASAP (see OP). The cheapest equivalent @ Microcenter is $156, and that's on top of the ~$250 I've already spent on this new hardware.
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TL-SG3210 - Ohhhhhh yeah. That will do it. Looks like a nice small switch.
I'm sure you can conquer VLANs in a a hour or two then you will be all set.
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if you need a new system right away: go old.
8111E's should work fine and were/are on a ton of consumer matx to full atx boards. not pretty, but you could just lay the hardware out on boxes and whatnot just to have it function
Or, find older generation Supermicro/Tyan server boards (Ivy Bridge or older), for which the newest Intel NIC should be the 82574.w.r.t. your current board: you may or may not be able to find an mPCIE ethernet card. it'd be a horribly ugly hack but it could work. they're also painfully rare.
w.r.t. an nc360t: have you tried looking through whatever classifieds are popular locally? the nc360t just seems to be the most popular card I've noticed with the 82571.
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So, you now have a working more than sufficiently powerful, low wattage pfsense box and will soon have all the WAN and LAN you need via VLAN… Problems solved.
Maybe you can keep and eye on that SSD of yours and post back letting people know how well and reliable it works over the life of your box. Those are very inexpensive SSDs and finding any rating on them is difficult. If it keeps working well for you it might make for a nice cheap option for people in the future.
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So, you now have a working more than sufficiently powerful, low wattage pfsense box and will soon have all the WAN and LAN you need via VLAN… Problems solved.
Maybe you can keep and eye on that SSD of yours and post back letting people know how well and reliable it works over the life of your box. Those are very inexpensive SSDs and finding any rating on them is difficult. If it keeps working well for you it might make for a nice cheap option for people in the future.
Well the SSD has been running in that box 24/7 since May 2012 (actually, the end of April), and still seems to be doing fine. Here's the SMART status from it:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE 12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 13 9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 100 100 000 Old_age Always - 0 194 Temperature_Celsius 0x0007 032 100 000 Pre-fail Always - 0 229 Unknown_Attribute 0x0002 100 000 000 Old_age Always - 589585213484 232 Available_Reservd_Space 0x0002 100 049 000 Old_age Always - 4626505281584 233 Media_Wearout_Indicator 0x0002 100 000 000 Old_age Always - 0 234 Unknown_Attribute 0x0002 100 000 000 Old_age Always - 94489281280 235 Unknown_Attribute 0x0002 100 000 000 Old_age Always - 4127259151(I'm amused that 32C is considered "pre-fail")
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SMART is pretty worthless for knowing the true health and true remaining life of SSDs. I call SSDs either working or not and pretty much ignore the smart reports. That switch is also pretty much unrated but seems like it will be very nice. Thats something else you might make posts about once you get its VLANs configured and get the pfsense VLANs working with it. Its a solid looking piece of hardware.
I'm running one of these in my old home box:
=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model: SAMSUNG MCCOE64G5MPP-0VA
Serial Number: SE816A2746SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 1
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME FLAG VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE UPDATED WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
9 Power_On_Hours 0x0032 097 097 000 Old_age Always - 10711
12 Power_Cycle_Count 0x0032 097 097 000 Old_age Always - 2045
175 Program_Fail_Count_Chip 0x0032 100 100 011 Old_age Always - 0
176 Erase_Fail_Count_Chip 0x0032 100 100 011 Old_age Always - 0
177 Wear_Leveling_Count 0x0013 099 099 023 Pre-fail Always - 15
178 Used_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Chip 0x0013 087 087 011 Pre-fail Always - 21
179 Used_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Tot 0x0013 094 094 010 Pre-fail Always - 315
180 Unused_Rsvd_Blk_Cnt_Tot 0x0013 094 094 010 Pre-fail Always - 4901
181 Program_Fail_Cnt_Total 0x0032 100 100 010 Old_age Always - 0
182 Erase_Fail_Count_Total 0x0032 100 100 010 Old_age Always - 0
183 Runtime_Bad_Block 0x0013 100 100 010 Pre-fail Always - 0
187 Reported_Uncorrect 0x0033 099 099 000 Pre-fail Always - 4
195 Hardware_ECC_Recovered 0x001a 199 199 000 Old_age Always - 4
198 Offline_Uncorrectable 0x0030 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count 0x003e 253 253 000 Old_age Always - 2 -
Hmmm… I found that I might be able to get the GA-H77N-WIFI motherboard... which would allow me to avoid the hassle of returning the CPU (the part I fear most about returning this hardware) -- it has dual Realtek GigE ethernet.
My only concerns with this would be whether the chipset is supported, and also I've heard some people pan Realtek around here -- I know they're not Intel, but are they really that bad?
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GA-H77N-WIFI will work with 2.1 but I think the wifi will not. That board has been tried out here before. I spent some time in a thread with a different guy with that board. All running except the wifi if I remember correctly.