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    PCEngines APU board with pfsense setup

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    • B
      bluebsh
      last edited by

      Hello,

      I'm new to pfSense in general and decided to build my own router using the APU2 kit from netgate.

      I got it all put together, imaged the pfsense latest build available 2.1.3-RELEASE (amd64) with serial console.

      This all went fine, set the kernel boot delay to 10000, set it in the config in pfsense to persist it also.

      Boots up, gets me my IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, routes fine, now it's time to start tinkering.

      This is my first experience with pfSense and there is a lot of config available.

      Is there anything I need to set up specific for the AMD T40E APU chip?

      For example: PowerD, should I be using this for power savings?

      Cryptogrpahic hardware, does this APU support toe AMD Geode functions?

      Thermal sensors? What is the correct setting?

      anything I can do to tune anything else with this board? NIC settings, or anything?

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      • forbiddenlakeF
        forbiddenlake
        last edited by

        I have one also, and as I understand it:

        For example: PowerD, should I be using this for power savings?

        Yes

        Cryptogrpahic hardware, does this APU support toe AMD Geode functions?

        No

        Thermal sensors? What is the correct setting?

        Have to wait for pfSense 2.2 for this support

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        • B
          bluebsh
          last edited by

          What's your throughput like on yours? Mine seems to be working nicely with my 110Mbit connection to my ISP.

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          • forbiddenlakeF
            forbiddenlake
            last edited by

            I can max out my 25/5 Mbps plan (no VPN).

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • B
              bluebsh
              last edited by

              anyone have any settings to change or optimizations they know of for this board for pfSense?

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              • B
                bennyc
                last edited by

                Turn it upside-down… (heat gets dissipated better  ;D)
                Other than that, what are you looking for? Do you have things that are not working fast enough, or issues? (other than the temperature sensor, but that seems a driver limitation in 2.1.x)

                If it ain't broken, don't fix it...  ;)

                4x XG-7100 (2xHA), 1x SG-4860, 1x SG-2100
                1x PC Engines APU2C4, 1x PC Engines APU1C4

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                • B
                  bluebsh
                  last edited by

                  well, for starters….

                  This has three Realtek RTL8111E chips on it. The chips themselves support hardware checksum offload, TCP segmentation offload and large receive offload. However, I don't know if the current driver it's using supports that... so what are the best settings for this?

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                  • B
                    bennyc
                    last edited by

                    Not much info on that (from my part).

                    Changing those settings only "offloads" the cpu from doing those tasks I think. I would only tweak that if I should encounter issues or suspect performance issues.
                    As in my situation I haven't seen much cpu usage anyway, I see no need to change the default settings from pfSense.
                    (For now, the apu can deliver more throughput than my ISP (120/6), and my OpenVPN's max out on upload speed, not on the apu's limitations….)

                    As your usage might differ from mine, my best advice would be to test it and see if you can gain anything...  (to be found here: System: Advanced: Networking  ->  section "Network Interfaces")

                    4x XG-7100 (2xHA), 1x SG-4860, 1x SG-2100
                    1x PC Engines APU2C4, 1x PC Engines APU1C4

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                    • H
                      hrts
                      last edited by

                      Hi,
                      I saw in a large number of posts that I need to edit /boot/loader.conf.local and add kern.cam.boot_delay=10000 in it.

                      Can somebody help me how to do this in this situation:
                      1. while i get this messages: /boot/loader.conf.local does not exist
                      2. Trying to create it with following command gives me an read only file system message

                      [2.1.3-RELEASE][root@pfsense]/boot(18): echo kern.cam.boot_delay=10000 > /boot/loader.conf.local
/boot/loader.conf.local: Read-only file system.

                      3. same message if I try to copy an existing conf file and later to modify it

                      [2.1.3-RELEASE][root@pfsense]/boot(22): cp loader.conf loader.conf.local
cp: loader.conf.local: Read-only file system

                      Is it ok if I add the line kern.cam.boot_delay=10000 inside loader.conf ?
                      Or should I add it in the loader.conf_wrap ?

                      And another one: I need 115200 baud rade for serial console (my APU start with this peed).
                      Is it ok to add the line comconsole_speed="115200" in the loader.conf?
                      Thank you!

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                      • stephenw10S
                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                        last edited by

                        If you're running Nano the filesystem is, by default, read-only. Re-mount it as read-write before you edit or add files. You can do that from the Diagnostics: NanoBSD: menu in the webgui or from the CLI:
                        https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Remount_embedded_filesystem_as_read-write

                        You should use loader.conf.local for any modifications you make. However that setting is required to allow the box to boot from media that requires a slight delay, since your box is clearly already booted why are you adding it?

                        You can set the console speed in the webgui in System: Advanced: Admin Access:

                        Steve

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                        • H
                          hrts
                          last edited by

                          Hi Steve,
                          Thank you!

                          Yes, the box (it is indeed NANO) is booted. I did that by stopping the boot sequence and giving the following commands:
                          set kern.cam.boot_delay=10000
                          boot

                          I wanted to make this setting permanent.
                          Anyway: I modified the loader.conf file: so it is permanent  ;D
                          Same for the console: I've added the line in loader.conf file.

                          This web GUI is not so easy - so I prefer to use my Linux knowledge and change the conf files.

                          Again, thank you!

                          Now I know what I've missed when I've tried to create the loader.conf.local file!

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