Are any external/USB graphics adapters supported?
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An external graphics adapter is actually a pretty obscure requirement.
IPMI in a rack system is pretty ubiquitous. Else serial console. Else an actual VGA/KVM ports.
You screwed the pooch on this purchase. Sorry.
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You picked a gamer board designed around the ability to install 3 gpus and want to run it without a gpu… At this point the best solution is to give up the idea of gps and use the onboard serial port as a console. (Gps over serial is pretty lousy anyway.) Or if you're still within the return window, pick a more optimal motherboard.
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I picked one of the few motherboards that met my requirements, of which 'gamer board' was not one:
- Supports Registered ECC memory
- Has at least 4 RAM slots so I can run 4x8GB instead of 2x16GB
- Is Micro ATX or Mini ITX to fit in the 1U chassis I selected
- Takes fairly modern CPUs (2011-3, AM4, or newer, but Ryzen ECC support only theoretical at this point)
- Has at least one M.2 slot for an on-board SSD
https://pcpartpicker.com/products/motherboard/#A=1&E=1,4&N=4,16&f=7&s=28
None of these options have IPMI ports.
Why is GPS over serial lousy? It looks fairly legit in this video, with the PPS signal provided on a separate line (DCD) generating an interrupt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3UTcF7FQDs
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Here's his result after adding the GPS over serial.
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In either case, no I do not want IPMI ports, nor does that solve what I asked.
No I do not want to abandon GPS over serial, or add another serial port, as it also does not solve what I asked.
I want on-demand graphics to a monitor over USB, from pfSense/FreeBSD. Does anyone know of any DisplayLink adapters that are compatible, or have gotten this working? This has been fairly well supported in Linux kernels for ~6+ years.
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Try it and see.
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Indeed; how helpful.
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Indeed; how helpful.
You're in territory here where nobody can give a first-hand experience "yes" or '"no" answer to your specific question. Hence, "try it and see."
Quick Google search brings up this: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=FreeBSD-DisplayLink-Support
Looks promising.
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Indeed; it links to an SVN Commit from 2015.03.07, which makes it unclear as to whether it is part of the Free BSD 10.3 release 2016.04.04.
This is also promising, but it doesn't seem to be present in 10.3, only 11+
https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=udl&apropos=0&sektion=4&manpath=FreeBSD+11.1-stable&arch=default&format=html
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Should be in pfSense 2.4 snapshots:
https://github.com/pfsense/FreeBSD-src/blob/releng/11.0/sys/dev/usb/video/udl.cNo idea about making that the primary console though. Some hackery required I would think if it works at all.
Steve
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Yeah, I plan on starting with a 2.4 snapshot. I'll try with a couple DisplayLink adapters I have already, but I will likely have to complete the initial setup via the serial port or a temporary graphics card.
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I want on-demand graphics to a monitor over USB, from pfSense/FreeBSD. Does anyone know of any DisplayLink adapters that are compatible
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If you don't care, or you don't know the answer, then your reply is not only pointless but also demonstrating that you do care in some way (at least sufficiently enough to comment).
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In either case, no I do not want IPMI ports, nor does that solve what I asked.
No I do not want to abandon GPS over serial, or add another serial port, as it also does not solve what I asked.
I want on-demand graphics to a monitor over USB, from pfSense/FreeBSD. Does anyone know of any DisplayLink adapters that are compatible, or have gotten this working? This has been fairly well supported in Linux kernels for ~6+ years.
You chose a weird set of requirements, decided to run a dedicated firewall OS on top of it, and want to do something unusual with it. I assume this is for a home lab, so just experiment until you find something that works for you. Or just run linux. With the overkill in CPU & memory you could virtualize pfsense, still get perfectly acceptable performance, and have lots of room left over for other VMs.
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What was 'weird' about the requirements, exactly?
Modernish CPU, Micro ATX to fit in a small 1U chassis, ECC, 4 slots for RAM all seem fairly reasonable, and I simply prefer M.2 for a more elegant storage solution rather than a separate 2.5" drive with associated SATA and Power cables. I'm reading now that some consumer Ryzen motherboards support unbuffered ECC RAM and have integrated graphics, so perhaps that would have been easier but the ECC support is spotty at best.
Though it seems fairly 'unusual' perhaps, I think it would be quite useful to run without a graphics card and only plug in a USB based graphics adapter for initial setup and troubleshooting.
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What was 'weird' about the requirements, exactly?
The requirement to support some whacky USB GPU? Guess how many firewalls out there have USB-based graphics chip. So, here's a suggestion: get the most shitty PCIe passively cooled GPU you can get your hands on from some dumpster, stick it into one of those completely unused PCIe slots and move on.
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I think that was plan A but limited space for expansions cards in the case makes it a problem.
You might be able to fit a PCIe serial port card in directly?
Since you already have the display link adapters you might as well try them. It would be interesting to see the results but I would expect significant problems. :-\
Steve
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Stop trying to get a GPU in there. The console over video out looks exactly the same as the serial console. Use a simple USB-Serial adapter (one end has USB, you stick that in to the firewall, the other end has RS232) and be done. If you want to do it "right", you might as well put the serial adapter in use with that GPS unit, and use the 'real' serial port for the console.
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What was 'weird' about the requirements, exactly?
The sum of the parts. You started by picking a small box, then cramming everything else into it. I'd personally start from the other end, deciding what functional components I needed, then picking a box to put them in. But ok. So you've limited the selection right at the start, by a lot. Then you want ECC. You don't really need ECC, most peoples' routers don't have ECC, but ok. But it turns out that the intersection between ECC and tiny motherboard is really, really small. Many (most?) of those that exist use SO-DIMMS because fitting normal DIMMS onto an itx motherboard is hard. Then instead of a small CPU, you want a massively overspec'd CPU, restricting the choice even more. If you'd gone with a lower power CPU there'd be a lot more options, or if you'd picked a case that took a bigger board, or if you'd dropped ECC, etc. So you might not have gone looking for a gamer board, but that's the only thing you found that happens to meet all the rest of the things that you decided you wanted. The motherboard simply isn't designed to provide what one would expect on a server platform, it's designed to support a high end gaming rig, with functionality you're not going to use instead of functionality most people would look for in a server. (Like a way to manage it.) There are solutions out there, but they're going to take more digging and aren't going to be at normal retail channels. I'd have suggested supermicro X10SRM-F or X10SRM-TF (10gbase-t version). They check all your boxes, but add IPMI, a VGA out, a dedicated external serial port, and a header for a second serial port–and much nicer NICs. That's the difference between a server board and a gamer board. So it's your choice, go down the road of experimenting with a solution which is always going to be a bit of an odd fit, or eat the restocking fee for something that's a natural fit.
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@johnkeates:
Stop trying to get a GPU in there. The console over video out looks exactly the same as the serial console. Use a simple USB-Serial adapter (one end has USB, you stick that in to the firewall, the other end has RS232) and be done. If you want to do it "right", you might as well put the serial adapter in use with that GPS unit, and use the 'real' serial port for the console.
NTP via GPS over USB serial is often worse than NTP via network time servers, just don't go there. And any of these USB console approaches is going to make BIOS upgrades a treat, even if you manage to get the OS console working.
