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    PfSense i7-4510U + 2x Intel 82574 + 2x Intel i350 (miniPCIE) Mini-ITX Build

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    • ?
      Guest
      last edited by

      @Paint
      Did you install pfSense and reached this throughput or is the speed test made under Linux or DD-WRT?
      How many and what kind of packets are installed on your pfSense box?

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

        @BlueKobold:

        @Paint
        Did you install pfSense and reached this throughput or is the speed test made under Linux or DD-WRT?
        How many and what kind of packets are installed on your pfSense box?

        The speed tests in my signature are using my Netgear R8000 Router running DD-WRT (Kong) on my 100/100 mbit fiber internet connection.

        The pfSense box I described in my OP arrives tomorrow so it will be at least a week before I post performance etc.

        pfSense i5-4590
        940/880 mbit Fiber Internet from FiOS
        BROCADE ICX6450 48Port L3-Managed Switch w/4x 10GB ports
        Netgear R8000 AP (DD-WRT)

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        • ?
          Guest
          last edited by

          The speed tests in my signature are using my Netgear R8000 Router running DD-WRT (Kong) on my 100/100 mbit fiber internet connection.

          Ah ok this was not clear to me.

          The pfSense box I described in my OP arrives tomorrow so it will be at least a week before I post performance etc.

          I am really interested to hear about that! If you do a fresh and full install it will be really interesting
          to know how good this pfSense box will be performing!

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

            @BlueKobold:

            The speed tests in my signature are using my Netgear R8000 Router running DD-WRT (Kong) on my 100/100 mbit fiber internet connection.

            Ah ok this was not clear to me.

            The pfSense box I described in my OP arrives tomorrow so it will be at least a week before I post performance etc.

            I am really interested to hear about that! If you do a fresh and full install it will be really interesting
            to know how good this pfSense box will be performing!

            I am doing a clean install of pfSense 2.3.1 64-bit. I will let you know the benchmarks, etc once I have the machine built.

            pfSense i5-4590
            940/880 mbit Fiber Internet from FiOS
            BROCADE ICX6450 48Port L3-Managed Switch w/4x 10GB ports
            Netgear R8000 AP (DD-WRT)

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • D
              ddarlington36
              last edited by

              I myself considering similar box in mind my purposes were mainly future proof and the Intel NICs plus price point is very appealing.  Are you running any type of VPN ipsec etc,  what packages are you running?you probably could get away with the i3/4005u  i5/4200u  or even a braswell n3150 if your setup is similar to mine .  But myself in the same boat as you started with dd-wrt and went to pfsense my reasons were related to vlan flexibility

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

                @ddarlington36:

                I myself considering similar box in mind my purposes were mainly future proof and the Intel NICs plus price point is very appealing.  Are you running any type of VPN ipsec etc,  what packages are you running?you probably could get away with the i3/4005u  i5/4200u  or even a braswell n3150 if your setup is similar to mine .  But myself in the same boat as you started with dd-wrt and went to pfsense my reasons were related to vlan flexibility

                I will be using a VPN, snort, pfblocker, and possibly squid. I will post a full update once I configure the machine. I just received the MiniPC yesterday - looks like it is made pretty well actually.

                pfSense i5-4590
                940/880 mbit Fiber Internet from FiOS
                BROCADE ICX6450 48Port L3-Managed Switch w/4x 10GB ports
                Netgear R8000 AP (DD-WRT)

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                • P
                  Paint
                  last edited by

                  Machine is built and pfSense is installed!

                  What performance tests would you like me to run (please provide the commands so I run the correct test)?

                  Thanks!

                  pfSense i5-4590
                  940/880 mbit Fiber Internet from FiOS
                  BROCADE ICX6450 48Port L3-Managed Switch w/4x 10GB ports
                  Netgear R8000 AP (DD-WRT)

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • M
                    mauroman33
                    last edited by

                    Hi Paint,

                    could you please run the simple OpenVPN benchmark referenced here:
                    https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=105238.msg616743#msg616743 (Reply #9 message)

                    Executing the command on my router with a Celeron N3150 I get
                    27.41 real        25.62 user        1.77 sys

                    (3200 / 27.41) = 117 Mbps OpenVPN performance (estimate)

                    This value perfectly fits to the result of a real speed test.

                    I recently got an upgrade to 250/100 connection and I'm considering buying a mini PC as your own if it were able to sustain this speed through the OpenVPN connection.

                    Thanks!

                    speedt1.png
                    speedt1.png_thumb

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

                      I would like to know the routing power and speed between two VLANs, if you get it working.
                      And on top a new speed test as you where showing it in your signature.

                      Also a IPSec test would be fine to see but mostly it will not really running pending on the
                      circumstance that two VPN endpoints must be there.

                      If you want to do some tuning for your pfSense box you could try out this ones;
                      Processor Main Frequency: 1.8GHz(Tubo 3.0GHz)
                      Processor Model:Intel I7 4500U

                      • Please enable PowerD (hi adaptive)
                        this will scale the CPU frequency from the lowest bottom to the highest top likes needed by the system and
                        pending of the entire network load of your network or pfSense firewall.

                      Hard Drive: Transcend 64GB SATA III 6Gb/s MSA370 mSATA Solid State Drive

                      • If this drive is supporting TRIM, enable also the TRIM support on the pfSense box
                        If this mSATA will be supporting TRIM it should be a deal for you to activate the TRIM support
                        of the pfSense system too

                      RAM:  8GB 1600MHz DDR3L PC3-12800 ECC CL11 1.35V SODIMM

                      • Please set the mbuf size to 1000000
                        You will be able to realize it and not ending up in a booting loop, if you are owing
                        sufficient amount of RAM and your 8 GB will be ideal for that tuning.

                      And at last please create a /boot/loader.conf.local file if that wasn´t done right now and enter
                      the line with the "mbuf size" there that this will suvive all updates/upgrades of your pfSense
                      system from version to version, because all files will be written totally new!

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

                        @mauroman33:

                        Hi Paint,

                        could you please run the simple OpenVPN benchmark referenced here:
                        https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=105238.msg616743#msg616743 (Reply #9 message)

                        Executing the command on my router with a Celeron N3150 I get
                        27.41 real        25.62 user        1.77 sys

                        (3200 / 27.41) = 117 Mbps OpenVPN performance (estimate)

                        This value perfectly fits to the result of a real speed test.

                        I recently got an upgrade to 250/100 connection and I'm considering buying a mini PC as your own if it were able to sustain this speed through the OpenVPN connection.

                        Thanks!

                        Here is the output:

                        [2.3.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.lan]/root: openvpn --genkey --secret /tmp/secret
                        [2.3.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.lan]/root: time openvpn --test-crypto --secret /tmp/secret --verb 0 --tun-mtu 20000 --cipher aes-256-cbc
                        10.682u 0.677s 0:11.36 99.9%    742+177k 0+0io 1pf+0w
                        [2.3.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.lan]/root:
                        

                        (3200 / 11.36) = 281.7 Mbps OpenVPN performance (estimate)

                        pfSense i5-4590
                        940/880 mbit Fiber Internet from FiOS
                        BROCADE ICX6450 48Port L3-Managed Switch w/4x 10GB ports
                        Netgear R8000 AP (DD-WRT)

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

                          @BlueKobold:

                          I would like to know the routing power and speed between two VLANs, if you get it working.
                          And on top a new speed test as you where showing it in your signature.

                          Also a IPSec test would be fine to see but mostly it will not really running pending on the
                          circumstance that two VPN endpoints must be there.

                          If you want to do some tuning for your pfSense box you could try out this ones;
                          Processor Main Frequency: 1.8GHz(Tubo 3.0GHz)
                          Processor Model:Intel I7 4500U

                          • Please enable PowerD (hi adaptive)
                            this will scale the CPU frequency from the lowest bottom to the highest top likes needed by the system and
                            pending of the entire network load of your network or pfSense firewall.

                          Hard Drive: Transcend 64GB SATA III 6Gb/s MSA370 mSATA Solid State Drive

                          • If this drive is supporting TRIM, enable also the TRIM support on the pfSense box
                            If this mSATA will be supporting TRIM it should be a deal for you to activate the TRIM support
                            of the pfSense system too

                          RAM:  8GB 1600MHz DDR3L PC3-12800 ECC CL11 1.35V SODIMM

                          • Please set the mbuf size to 1000000
                            You will be able to realize it and not ending up in a booting loop, if you are owing
                            sufficient amount of RAM and your 8 GB will be ideal for that tuning.

                          And at last please create a /boot/loader.conf.local file if that wasn´t done right now and enter
                          the line with the "mbuf size" there that this will suvive all updates/upgrades of your pfSense
                          system from version to version, because all files will be written totally new!

                          Got this mostly up and working today. I am going to do some additional tweaks before I release any speed tests, but I can report that my WAN speeds are about he same (I'm capped at 100/100mbits anyway).

                          I tried to enable TRIM via this post: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=83272.msg456248#msg456248

                          Unfortunately, after adding ahci_load to my loader.conf.local and running touch /root/TRIM_set; /etc/rc.reboot I still do not have TRIM (I dont think its a big deal though)

                          [2.3.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.lan]/root: tunefs -p /
                          tunefs: POSIX.1e ACLs: (-a)                                disabled
                          tunefs: NFSv4 ACLs: (-N)                                   disabled
                          tunefs: MAC multilabel: (-l)                               disabled
                          tunefs: soft updates: (-n)                                 enabled
                          tunefs: soft update journaling: (-j)                       enabled
                          tunefs: gjournal: (-J)                                     disabled
                          tunefs: trim: (-t)                                         disabled
                          tunefs: maximum blocks per file in a cylinder group: (-e)  4096
                          tunefs: average file size: (-f)                            16384
                          tunefs: average number of files in a directory: (-s)       64
                          tunefs: minimum percentage of free space: (-m)             8%
                          tunefs: space to hold for metadata blocks: (-k)            6408
                          tunefs: optimization preference: (-o)                      time
                          tunefs: volume label: (-L)
                          
                          

                          Here is a copy of my /boot/loader.conf.local:

                          ahci_load="YES"
                          kern.ipc.nmbclusters="1000000"
                          legal.intel_ipw.license_ack=1
                          legal.intel_iwi.license_ack=1
                          

                          pfSense i5-4590
                          940/880 mbit Fiber Internet from FiOS
                          BROCADE ICX6450 48Port L3-Managed Switch w/4x 10GB ports
                          Netgear R8000 AP (DD-WRT)

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • M
                            mauroman33
                            last edited by

                            @Paint:

                            Here is the output:

                            [2.3.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.lan]/root: openvpn --genkey --secret /tmp/secret
                            [2.3.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.lan]/root: time openvpn --test-crypto --secret /tmp/secret --verb 0 --tun-mtu 20000 --cipher aes-256-cbc
                            10.682u 0.677s 0:11.36 99.9%    742+177k 0+0io 1pf+0w
                            [2.3.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.lan]/root:
                            

                            (3200 / 11.36) = 281.7 Mbps OpenVPN performance (estimate)

                            Thanks mate!
                            Now I know that I have to find my way in this cpu's class

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                            • D
                              ddarlington36
                              last edited by

                              What's the CPU usage like during the tests?  Is that test anything like iperf or dose it simulate the openvpn throughput/bandwidth.  Pretty impressive results !! I'm sold

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

                                Got this mostly up and working today. I am going to do some additional tweaks before I release any speed tests, but I can report that my WAN speeds are about he same (I'm capped at 100/100mbits anyway).

                                With disabled PowerD (hi adaptive) it could be that the CPU frequency is not scaling from low to high likes it
                                is needed by the load, and so any kind of many tests could be not really right then! Please don´t forget this
                                and think about.

                                I tried to enable TRIM via this post: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=83272.msg456248#msg456248

                                Unfortunately, after adding ahci_load to my loader.conf.local and running touch /root/TRIM_set; /etc/rc.reboot I still do not have TRIM (I dont think its a big deal though)

                                Please use this procedure shown in that thread/post exactly! It is right matching and well working!
                                Enable TRIM Support in pfSense

                                ahci_load="YES"
                                kern.ipc.nmbclusters="1000000"
                                legal.intel_ipw.license_ack=1
                                legal.intel_iwi.license_ack=1
                                

                                This might be right looking to me. If you are doing tests now, you could not be running out of kernel
                                space or mbuf size!

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

                                  @mauroman33:

                                  @Paint:

                                  Here is the output:

                                  [2.3.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.lan]/root: openvpn --genkey --secret /tmp/secret
                                  [2.3.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.lan]/root: time openvpn --test-crypto --secret /tmp/secret --verb 0 --tun-mtu 20000 --cipher aes-256-cbc
                                  10.682u 0.677s 0:11.36 99.9%    742+177k 0+0io 1pf+0w
                                  [2.3.1-RELEASE][root@pfSense.lan]/root:
                                  

                                  (3200 / 11.36) = 281.7 Mbps OpenVPN performance (estimate)

                                  Thanks mate!
                                  Now I know that I have to find my way in this cpu's class

                                  anytime! Loving this MiniPC so far!

                                  pfSense i5-4590
                                  940/880 mbit Fiber Internet from FiOS
                                  BROCADE ICX6450 48Port L3-Managed Switch w/4x 10GB ports
                                  Netgear R8000 AP (DD-WRT)

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

                                    @ddarlington36:

                                    What's the CPU usage like during the tests?  Is that test anything like iperf or dose it simulate the openvpn throughput/bandwidth.  Pretty impressive results !! I'm sold

                                    CPU is almost non existent (less than .1-.2 on the 1min top) I will provide a more detailed update once I finish my firewall/traffic shaping/snort/country blocking setup.

                                    I still need to do an iperf test, but I believe I will get very close to 1gbps over my LAN. Therefore, CPU is your bottleneck when using VPN. The previous test shows how fast your CPU can encrypt information and backs into a mbps theoretical max.

                                    pfSense i5-4590
                                    940/880 mbit Fiber Internet from FiOS
                                    BROCADE ICX6450 48Port L3-Managed Switch w/4x 10GB ports
                                    Netgear R8000 AP (DD-WRT)

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

                                      Thanks mate!
                                      Now I know that I have to find my way in this cpu's class

                                      If you are unsure, money is not the real problem for you and you will be having much throughput in the WAN
                                      and LAN area or high throughput over any VPN tunnel, go and buy a Intel Xeon E3-1240v3 and 8 GB DDR3
                                      1600MHz RAM and you will be getting out the maximum of all! Not cheap, but very effective in any kind of.
                                      You can also save money over a longer time or get parts refurbished!

                                      I still need to do an iperf test, but I believe I will get very close to 1gbps over my LAN. Therefore, CPU is your bottleneck when using VPN. The previous test shows how fast your CPU can encrypt information and backs into a mbps theoretical max.

                                      Set up at the LAN interface a subnet likes 192.168.xx and on the other LAN interface another one likes
                                      172.xx.xx and then iPerf client to server test, you can repeat it through the WAN interface by setting up there
                                      a small GB switch and set up outside the AN interface the iPerf server.

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

                                        @BlueKobold:

                                        Thanks mate!
                                        Now I know that I have to find my way in this cpu's class

                                        If you are unsure, money is not the real problem for you and you will be having much throughput in the WAN
                                        and LAN area or high throughput over any VPN tunnel, go and buy a Intel Xeon E3-1240v3 and 8 GB DDR3
                                        1600MHz RAM and you will be getting out the maximum of all! Not cheap, but very effective in any kind of.
                                        You can also save money over a longer time or get parts refurbished!

                                        I still need to do an iperf test, but I believe I will get very close to 1gbps over my LAN. Therefore, CPU is your bottleneck when using VPN. The previous test shows how fast your CPU can encrypt information and backs into a mbps theoretical max.

                                        Set up at the LAN interface a subnet likes 192.168.xx and on the other LAN interface another one likes
                                        172.xx.xx and then iPerf client to server test, you can repeat it through the WAN interface by setting up there
                                        a small GB switch and set up outside the AN interface the iPerf server.

                                        ill do a few different tests for iperf in the next few days. I already have my DHCP server cloning my G1100 MAC and DHCP request so that I can run the FIOS MoCA G1100 Quantum Router in parallel to my pfSense box - this eliminates a double NAT situation, allows me to use my own router, and keep all of the FIOS services (Remote DVR, VoD, CallerID, etc) without the need for my backend "three router" setup.

                                        To setup a new vlan to test a fake WAN will be a piece of cake after that  :P

                                        This whole setup only cost me $400 USD + $30 USD for a Dell PowerConnect 2716 Managed Switch from eBay. For the price, I dont think it can be beat!

                                        pfSense i5-4590
                                        940/880 mbit Fiber Internet from FiOS
                                        BROCADE ICX6450 48Port L3-Managed Switch w/4x 10GB ports
                                        Netgear R8000 AP (DD-WRT)

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

                                          What speed do you get from the squid cache?
                                          Download a file
                                          Test files here
                                          http://mirror.internode.on.net/pub/test/
                                          Then once it is downloaded try redownloading and check the speed from the squid cache

                                          Never Fear, A Geek is Here!

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

                                            @aGeekHere:

                                            What speed do you get from the squid cache?
                                            Download a file
                                            Test files here
                                            http://mirror.internode.on.net/pub/test/
                                            Then once it is downloaded try redownloading and check the speed from the squid cache

                                            http://mirror.internode.on.net/pub/test/ this link does not work….

                                            pfSense i5-4590
                                            940/880 mbit Fiber Internet from FiOS
                                            BROCADE ICX6450 48Port L3-Managed Switch w/4x 10GB ports
                                            Netgear R8000 AP (DD-WRT)

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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