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    GA-9SISL Gigabyte Motherboard

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    • A
      alf007
      last edited by

      Hi:

      I just want to know if the GA-9SISL is a good option to run the Pfsense firewall.
      I work at a company that has 20 users and I would like to secure our network with a Pfsense firewall.

      If you have suggestions, please replay.

      Thanks.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • J
        jasonlitka
        last edited by

        Looks very similar to the SuperMicro board that many of us are using, aside from the addition of an active cooler and full-size memory slots.

        I can break anything.

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        • A
          alf007
          last edited by

          Thanks for the replay. By the way, how much memory do you think I will need? 4GB, 8GB 0 16GB?

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          • J
            jasonlitka
            last edited by

            @alf007:

            Thanks for the replay. By the way, how much memory do you think I will need? 4GB, 8GB 0 16GB?

            If all you're doing is FW+NAT then not much at all.  If you're going to start using Snort/Suricata, Squid, ClamAV, etc. then as much as possible.

            I can break anything.

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            • A
              alf007
              last edited by

              Thank you, again. I made some research about the NIC of the GA-9SISL, the model is Intel i350, I checked the drivers in the Intel page and there are only available for Free BSD 9, it would be a problem to install this driver? I also checked the Gigabyte and they offer a Linux Red Hat driver, does this work on Free BSD?

              Thanks a lot for your help. I'm asking so many questions because I'm new is this software.

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              • J
                jasonlitka
                last edited by

                The i354 works fine under pfSense.  You don't need a newer driver.

                I can break anything.

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                • M
                  messerchmidt
                  last edited by

                  the supermicro board is cheaper and well tested

                  http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Atom/X10/A1SAM-2750F.cfm

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                  • A
                    alf007
                    last edited by

                    Thanks for the replay, but what about the drivers for Free BSD, I looked up in the Super Micro web page and it only provides drivers for Microsoft OS.

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                    • J
                      jasonlitka
                      last edited by

                      @alf007:

                      Thanks for the replay, but what about the drivers for Free BSD, I looked up in the Super Micro web page and it only provides drivers for Microsoft OS.

                      You don't need any drivers that don't ship with the OS.

                      I can break anything.

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                      • A
                        alf007
                        last edited by

                        Ok, got it! Thanks!

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                        • J
                          jasonlitka
                          last edited by

                          I would recommend getting the C2758 variant though.  It will be a bit slower on Day 1, but once support for QuickAssist is added to pfSense later this year (I believe) it will be MUCH faster than the C2750.

                          I can break anything.

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                          • M
                            messerchmidt
                            last edited by

                            @Jason:

                            I would recommend getting the C2758 variant though.  It will be a bit slower on Day 1, but once support for QuickAssist is added to pfSense later this year (I believe) it will be MUCH faster than the C2750.

                            http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/io/quickassist-technology/quickassist-technology-developer.html

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                            • RangoR
                              Rango
                              last edited by

                              Are there any new board suggestions for this CPU ?
                              I found this Asrock board but i see marvell sata storages may have issue with ESXi.  Anyway it's been a year since this thread so maybe someone can post and update?

                              Asrock
                              http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157475

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                              • ?
                                Guest
                                last edited by

                                I just want to know if the GA-9SISL is a good option to run the Pfsense firewall.

                                It is an Intel Atom C2x50 (Avoton) based board that comes with AES-NI and TurboBoost that is
                                more made for building servers like Samba, Apache or hyper visors such as ESXi and the other
                                Intel Atom C2x58 (Rangeley) SoC is coming with AES-NI and Intel QuickAssist that is
                                perhaps later then better for pfSense or so called more future oriented.

                                I work at a company that has 20 users and I would like to secure our network with a Pfsense firewall.

                                And the WAN throughput is how much?
                                Which additional packets you want to install on top?
                                What else you want to run on the pfSense firewall?
                                (Snort, Squid & SquidGuard, ClamAV, SARG and pfBlocker-NG)

                                Gigabyte GA-9SISL only is for ~520 €
                                compared against the other board
                                Supermicro A1SRi-2758F is for ~380 €
                                2 x 8 GB ECC RAM will be for ~110 €
                                M350 case is for ~50 €
                                All in all for ~540 € only a SSD and the PSU is needed then to close it up!

                                And both are coming together with Intel i354 quad port GB NICs and pfSense
                                supports that NICs with the igb(4) driver by default.

                                Thanks for the replay. By the way, how much memory do you think I will need? 4GB, 8GB 0 16GB?

                                This is not so easy to answer because it depends all on your configuration and use case plus workload. 
                                2 GB pfSense firewall only
                                2 GB - 4 GB firewall & Snort & Squid as http proxy
                                4 GB - 8 GB firewall & Snort & Squid as a caching proxy & SquidGuard & pfBlocker-NG
                                8 GB - 16 GB firewall & Snort & Squid as a caching proxy & SquidGuard SARG & pfBlocker-NG & ClamAV

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