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    Any known server hardware that works with pfSense?

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    • S
      Spix
      last edited by

      Hello Forum, I´m rebuilding our firewalls for a big production environment

      Is there any known server hardware that works with pfSense? I´m looking for;

      1 to 2 units
      Redundant PSU´s
      Xeon CPU, 1 or 2 sockets
      4 or more HotPlug disk´s

      I prefer HP Servers

      I have been looking for DL360 Gen8, but don´t know if they work 100% with pfSense 2.2, and don´t know about drivers for various NIC cards or raid controllers. There are so many models and variations.

      Is there like a list of guaranteed models that members of the pfSense forum has been trying out and know they work?

      Best regards
      Spix

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

        Why would you need 4 hard drives for a firewall?

        Anyway, I'm currently using two of these at my main office, equipped with (12) Intel i350 Gbe ports and (2) Intel X520 10Gbe ports.

        http://www.lannerinc.com/products/x86-network-appliances/rackmount/fw-8865

        Later this year I'll probably move to this lovely box and go all 10Gbe.

        http://www.lannerinc.com/products/x86-network-appliances/x86-rackmount-appliances/fw-8894

        I can break anything.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • ?
          Guest
          last edited by

          I bet you won't.  :-)

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • S
            Spix
            last edited by

            4 hard drives in RAID 10 for Squid Proxy. 4500 users, 2 x 2Gbit internet Connections.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • P
              Phobia
              last edited by

              @Jason:

              Why would you need 4 hard drives for a firewall?

              Anyway, I'm currently using two of these at my main office, equipped with (12) Intel i350 Gbe ports and (2) Intel X520 10Gbe ports.

              http://www.lannerinc.com/products/x86-network-appliances/rackmount/fw-8865

              Later this year I'll probably move to this lovely box and go all 10Gbe.

              http://www.lannerinc.com/products/x86-network-appliances/x86-rackmount-appliances/fw-8894

              Jason - if you wouldn't mind sharing, could you please reveal where you source your Lanner gear?  I've looked at their website, but they don't even publish pricing, and a quick check of my usual vendors turned up zero results.

              Perhaps I'm missing something obvious … wouldn't be the first time! :)

              Thanks!

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

                @gonzopancho:

                I bet you won't.  :-)

                Why?  Got something better coming with 10Gbe ports?  I've started to use pfSense internally for filtering as well as at network edge and if I can't push traffic at 10Gbe+ internally I'll have users complaining.

                @Phobia:

                @Jason:

                Why would you need 4 hard drives for a firewall?

                Anyway, I'm currently using two of these at my main office, equipped with (12) Intel i350 Gbe ports and (2) Intel X520 10Gbe ports.

                http://www.lannerinc.com/products/x86-network-appliances/rackmount/fw-8865

                Later this year I'll probably move to this lovely box and go all 10Gbe.

                http://www.lannerinc.com/products/x86-network-appliances/x86-rackmount-appliances/fw-8894

                Jason - if you wouldn't mind sharing, could you please reveal where you source your Lanner gear?  I've looked at their website, but they don't even publish pricing, and a quick check of my usual vendors turned up zero results.

                Perhaps I'm missing something obvious … wouldn't be the first time! :)

                Thanks!

                I call or email Lanner, they send me a quote, I order, I get it 1-3 weeks later.

                I can break anything.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • A
                  Aze
                  last edited by

                  @Jason:

                  Why would you need 4 hard drives for a firewall?

                  Anyway, I'm currently using two of these at my main office, equipped with (12) Intel i350 Gbe ports and (2) Intel X520 10Gbe ports.

                  http://www.lannerinc.com/products/x86-network-appliances/rackmount/fw-8865

                  Later this year I'll probably move to this lovely box and go all 10Gbe.

                  http://www.lannerinc.com/products/x86-network-appliances/x86-rackmount-appliances/fw-8894

                  Where can I get this?`
                  http://www.lannerinc.com/products/x86-network-appliances/x86-rackmount-appliances/fw-8894

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • M
                    Mr. Jingles
                    last edited by

                    @Jason:

                    equipped with (12) Intel i350 Gbe ports and (2) Intel X520 10Gbe ports.

                    12 x 4 NICs  :o

                    I have 4 NICs  :P

                    ( ;D )

                    Do you have > 40 subnets, Jason, or is for something else?

                    6 and a half billion people know that they are stupid, agressive, lower life forms.

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

                      It's (12) 1Gbe i350 ports, not (48) 1Gbe.

                      I was using them for (4) WAN connections and a bunch of internal vLANs.  Most of the 1Gbe ports are now empty because I've shifted the bulk of the traffic over to trunked 10Gbe ports.

                      I can break anything.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • H
                        heper
                        last edited by

                        @Spix:

                        4 hard drives in RAID 10 for Squid Proxy. 4500 users, 2 x 2Gbit internet Connections.

                        If you are planning to build something to accomodate 4500 users, you could contact he pfsense devs or netgate ….
                        perhaps one of their appliances, that are fully tested, and have commercial support, are a good option

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • M
                          Mr. Jingles
                          last edited by

                          @Jason:

                          It's (12) 1Gbe i350 ports, not (48) 1Gbe.

                          I was using them for (4) WAN connections and a bunch of internal vLANs.  Most of the 1Gbe ports are now empty because I've shifted the bulk of the traffic over to trunked 10Gbe ports.

                          Zorry, I misunderstood  ;D

                          6 and a half billion people know that they are stupid, agressive, lower life forms.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • M
                            Mr. Jingles
                            last edited by

                            @heper:

                            @Spix:

                            4 hard drives in RAID 10 for Squid Proxy. 4500 users, 2 x 2Gbit internet Connections.

                            If you are planning to build something to accomodate 4500 users, you could contact he pfsense devs or netgate ….
                            perhaps one of their appliances, that are fully tested, and have commercial support, are a good option

                            I tend to agree, actually, as the stupid economist; if it's something for 4500 ( :o ) users, I'd want full support for it, preferably 24/7.

                            The current head quarters of a huge (huge) multinational over here, one of my clients, staffs 800 people. I'm sure many people in here would drewl when seeing their IT-department's stuff  ;D

                            6 and a half billion people know that they are stupid, agressive, lower life forms.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • Q
                              q54e3w
                              last edited by

                              @Jason:

                              It's (12) 1Gbe i350 ports, not (48) 1Gbe.

                              I was using them for (4) WAN connections and a bunch of internal vLANs.  Most of the 1Gbe ports are now empty because I've shifted the bulk of the traffic over to trunked 10Gbe ports.

                              Thats a useful looking box. Can you fit multiple 10gbe cards, i.e 24 1gbe and 24 x 10gbe?
                              What sort of throughput are you seeing with std and jumbo frames Jason? This could be just what I'm looking for…

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • H
                                Harvy66
                                last edited by

                                You're talking about 10Gb ports and stuff. SSDs for that RAID? Make sure you have TRIM enabled, it will be very useful for data that churns. I would just purchase 4 Samsung 850 EVO 500GB. They're fast, cheap, and quite reliable. Just keep an eye on how many writes are done over time. They're warranties for 150TB written, but stress testers have gotten them to 800TB before SMART showed blocks getting shuffled.

                                Personally, I would swap out two drives once they have reached 1/2 of their writes, to keep uneven wear. You don't need both mirrors dying at the same time because they have the same amount of data written.

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                                • J
                                  jasonlitka
                                  last edited by

                                  @irj972:

                                  @Jason:

                                  It's (12) 1Gbe i350 ports, not (48) 1Gbe.

                                  I was using them for (4) WAN connections and a bunch of internal vLANs.  Most of the 1Gbe ports are now empty because I've shifted the bulk of the traffic over to trunked 10Gbe ports.

                                  Thats a useful looking box. Can you fit multiple 10gbe cards, i.e 24 1gbe and 24 x 10gbe?
                                  What sort of throughput are you seeing with std and jumbo frames Jason? This could be just what I'm looking for…

                                  There are (4) 1Gbe built-in and room for two expansion cards.  I know you can do (4) 10Gbe with two dual-port cards.  Not sure if the 8865 supports the quad-port expansion cards.

                                  The best I've seen is ~2.3Gbit/s single stream and about twice that with multiple, but I'm still on 2.1.5 because of the stupid CARP+Limiters bug in 2.2.  I'm expecting better with newer drivers and multi-threaded pf.

                                  I can break anything.

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

                                    I'm working in a similar project, and I was considering that:

                                    http://www.lannerinc.com/products/x86-network-appliances/rackmount/fw-8896

                                    Talking with Lanner engineering about FreeBSD 10 compatibility they said me that it hangs on boot with this network appliance….

                                    It's a very brand new model and I suspect that is in fact compatible, but with some workaround to boot...

                                    Is someone there using a similar equipment? (Same CPU and chipset)

                                    I'm considering similar hardware too, tips are welcome!  ;)

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • ?
                                      Guest
                                      last edited by

                                      @Blooregard:

                                      I'm working in a similar project, and I was considering that:

                                      http://www.lannerinc.com/products/x86-network-appliances/rackmount/fw-8896

                                      Talking with Lanner engineering about FreeBSD 10 compatibility they said me that it hangs on boot with this network appliance….

                                      It's a very brand new model and I suspect that is in fact compatible, but with some workaround to boot...

                                      Is someone there using a similar equipment? (Same CPU and chipset)

                                      I'm considering similar hardware too, tips are welcome!  ;)

                                      • 1 from for that!

                                      Thanks for sharing your experiences, we where also looking forward to a bigger and faster instance
                                      to run pfSense native installed on and we where playing arround with the brand new Lanner-FW8895
                                      shown under the links in the next lines.

                                      Lanner has also distributors in various countries, here in Germany where I am, we have two of them
                                      and like jason was telling before, we also call them, order and whait three till five weeks and the
                                      hardware is there!

                                      The Lanner FW-8895 is capable of many ports in many assets and comes also with 4 hot swap able
                                      HDD slots. And on top we where looking with one eyes on this module for the FW-8895 for
                                      faster DPI packet processing and VPN speed but we are not nowing anything over the support
                                      in pfSense.

                                      Lanner FW-8895
                                      Lanner NCS-MTX401

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