Can't detect intel quad nic- help please!
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In scenarios like this I try not to get creative. I would only run one that someone else was already running and was working fine.
No sense volunteering to be a crash test dummy unless you have to.
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I'm not trying to be creative at all, just economical. I wanted a 4 port nic, this is my second try. Each time I thought I was buying something that would just plug and play, since others have had success with both. Just bad luck I guess.
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Ok, I flashed updated firmware to the i350 t4 and it is recognized no problem. So… now what? :)
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Ummmmmm…. So now you have a pfsense with a LAN / WAN and 2 OPT ports?
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Yes, actually 5 ports total counting the on board nic, but i'll probably disable that one. I have dual wan and a wifi/ap. I wonder if I should plug the wifi/ap into the pfsense box or the switch?
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Switch.
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I've seen switch recommended over available NIC ports several times. Why is that the recommended way?
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Unless you need to have your AP on a separate subnet for isolation/firewalling/etc., you're better off to have your switch manage it's traffic rather than a pfSense NIC.
You can still manage specific rules as for any other LAN device, but you're not forcing pfSense to handle ALL the traffic from the AP.
It makes the best use of the available horsepower in your all your network devices.
Just my $.02 YMMV ;)
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Is it because it's faster or more efficient if a switch handles the traffic from the WAP when on the same subnet?
I'm in the same boat as the OP in that I bought one of the cheap i350 4 port NICs (~$120 on Ebay) as well. I ended up putting the WAP on the switch, but I initially intended to put it on the NIC. At the moment, 2 ports on the NIC are not in use. Placing it on the NIC seemed like the logical choice since that's how I set it up on every router I've used at home (D-Links to Zyxel USGs).
Thanks for the input.
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Is it because it's faster or more efficient if a switch handles the traffic from the WAP when on the same subnet?
Both.
I'm in the same boat as the OP in that I bought one of the cheap i350 4 port NICs (~$120 on Ebay) as well. I ended up putting the WAP on the switch, but I initially intended to put it on the NIC. At the moment, 2 ports on the NIC are not in use. Placing it on the NIC seemed like the logical choice since that's how I set it up on every router I've used at home (D-Links to Zyxel USGs).
Thanks for the input.
Home/dedicated routers often have dedicated internal hardware to make the use of multiple NIC ports in a bridged fashion more efficient than the general purpose approach of pfSense.
Passing all your NIC traffic through the internal PCI/System data bus is less efficient, but gives far more flexibility in what hardware/packages can be used with pfSense.
I know sometimes it feels like you're "wasting" a NIC in pfSense just because it doesn't get used, but at the current price of a reasonably good switch (10's of$) it's lousy bang for the buck trying to internally bridge pfSense NIC's just to save on a switch. ;)