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    PC Engines apu2 experiences

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    • D
      dugeem @stephenw10
      last edited by

      @stephenw10 You mean the original APU (with AMD G-T40E CPU) - not the APU2 (with AMD GX-412TC CPU) right? No issues with powerd on APU2 (although whether it makes any sense now with CPB is the issue)

      stephenw10S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • stephenw10S
        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator @dugeem
        last edited by

        @dugeem Ah, true! That was referring to the original APU, my mistake.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • VeldkornetV
          Veldkornet
          last edited by

          Is anyone using the CoDel / FQ_CoDel Traffic Shaping on the APU2?

          Working well? Any problems?

          cwagzC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • cwagzC
            cwagz @Veldkornet
            last edited by

            @Veldkornet said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

            Is anyone using the CoDel / FQ_CoDel Traffic Shaping on the APU2?

            Working well? Any problems?

            I have an APU2 box at work to provide a separate network for personal devices. It is setup with the FQ_CoDel limiter / floating rules method described towards the end of the Playing with FQ-CoDel Thread. It has been rock solid and seems to provide equal bandwidth sharing for the 30 - 50 devices connected each day and 16 - 20 GB of traffic that is passed on our 150/150 FiOS link.

            Netgate 6100 MAX

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • D
              daemonix @Veldkornet
              last edited by

              @Veldkornet said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

              @qinn SSH into it and install flashrom. No need to boot from USB etc.

              pkg install flashrom

              Upload the firmware to /tmp with scp and run:
              flashrom -w /tmp/apu2_v4.9.0.2.rom -p internal:boardmismatch=force

              Shutdown pfSense, pull the power for 10 seconds, then boot up.

              I still run the original (legacy) bios that came with my apu2c4 almost 2 years ago?! (maybe 1 year I cant remember). I also run the latest stable pfsense.

              Anything I need to do (regarding settings or something else) before flushing from the pfsense itself??
              thanks

              QinnQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • QinnQ
                Qinn @daemonix
                last edited by Qinn

                @daemonix Nope, just install the flashrom like above, then download the latest Mainline from here

                https://pcengines.github.io/
                

                then flash it and reboot, I have switched from Legacy to Mainline months ago and everything works still fine.

                ...and btw you don't need the force option, this is enough

                flashrom -w /tmp/apu2_v4.9.0.7.rom -p internal
                

                Hardeware: Intel(R) Celeron(R) J4125 CPU @ 2.00GHz 102 GB mSATA SSD (ZFS)
                Firmware: Latest-stable-pfSense CE (amd64)
                Packages: pfBlockerNG devel-beta (beta tester) - Avahi - Notes - Ntopng - PIMD/udpbroadcastrelay - Service Watchdog - System Patches

                D 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • D
                  daemonix @Qinn
                  last edited by

                  @Qinn said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

                  @daemonix Nope, just install the flashrom like above, then download the latest Mainline from here

                  https://pcengines.github.io/
                  

                  then flash it and reboot, I have switched from Legacy to Mainline months ago and everything works still fine.

                  ...and btw you don't need the force option, this is enough

                  flashrom -w /tmp/apu2_v4.9.0.7.rom -p internal
                  

                  Thanks a lot for the quick replay!
                  Im do it later in the evening and hopefully Ill have internet after the reboot heheheh

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • D
                    daemonix @Qinn
                    last edited by daemonix

                    This post is deleted!
                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • D
                      daemonix @Qinn
                      last edited by

                      @Qinn said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

                      @daemonix Nope, just install the flashrom like above, then download the latest Mainline from here

                      https://pcengines.github.io/
                      

                      then flash it and reboot, I have switched from Legacy to Mainline months ago and everything works still fine.

                      ...and btw you don't need the force option, this is enough

                      flashrom -w /tmp/apu2_v4.9.0.7.rom -p internal
                      

                      Done without a problem!
                      I had a serial link to it so I did it from there so I can see the boot sequence.

                      Now that I have time to experiment a bit.
                      What are the recommended combination of settings that favour performance on a openvpn server nowadays ?

                      BSD crypto ON/OFF? CBC/GBC algo? etc..
                      I get 40mbit on the apu2 hosted server.

                      fireodoF 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • fireodoF
                        fireodo @daemonix
                        last edited by

                        @daemonix said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

                        BSD crypto ON/OFF? CBC/GBC algo? etc..
                        I get 40mbit on the apu2 hosted server.

                        From my knowledge for the APU2-Board the settings should be AES-NI (in CPU).

                        Regards,
                        fireodo

                        Kettop Mi4300YL CPU: i5-4300Y @ 1.60GHz RAM: 8GB Ethernet Ports: 4
                        SSD: SanDisk pSSD-S2 16GB (ZFS) WiFi: WLE200NX
                        pfsense 2.8.0 CE
                        Packages: Apcupsd, Cron, Iftop, Iperf, LCDproc, Nmap, pfBlockerNG, RRD_Summary, Shellcmd, Snort, Speedtest, System_Patches.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • QinnQ
                          Qinn
                          last edited by Qinn

                          I agree try AES-NI (in cpu) read this please, especially the reply from "jimp" https://forum.netgate.com/topic/114212/aes-ni-cryptodev-openvpn-help-a-n00b-understand/16

                          The setting is in :

                          System/Advanced/Miscellaneous
                          

                          try it and see how it performs.

                          Hardeware: Intel(R) Celeron(R) J4125 CPU @ 2.00GHz 102 GB mSATA SSD (ZFS)
                          Firmware: Latest-stable-pfSense CE (amd64)
                          Packages: pfBlockerNG devel-beta (beta tester) - Avahi - Notes - Ntopng - PIMD/udpbroadcastrelay - Service Watchdog - System Patches

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

                            fast-io
                            sndbuf 524288
                            rcvbuf 524288

                            added this, changed my PIA client to GCM (my server was already GCM) and I already had just the hardware acceleration only...
                            Gone from 45-sih mbit to 70-70mbit in both PIA and my server!!!

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • K
                              kevindd992002
                              last edited by

                              @Qinn said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

                              https://pcengines.github.io/

                              Does this mean that "AES-NI CPU-based acceleration" is better than the "AES-NI and BSD Crypto Device" option? I'm still confused what the difference between those two are.

                              fireodoF 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • fireodoF
                                fireodo @kevindd992002
                                last edited by

                                @kevindd992002 said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

                                Does this mean that "AES-NI CPU-based acceleration" is better than the "AES-NI and BSD Crypto Device" option? I'm still confused what the difference between those two are.

                                Yes! The Apu2 does not have a dedicated Crypto-Device, the Crypto-Functions are integrated in the CPU (much faster). IMHO

                                Kettop Mi4300YL CPU: i5-4300Y @ 1.60GHz RAM: 8GB Ethernet Ports: 4
                                SSD: SanDisk pSSD-S2 16GB (ZFS) WiFi: WLE200NX
                                pfsense 2.8.0 CE
                                Packages: Apcupsd, Cron, Iftop, Iperf, LCDproc, Nmap, pfBlockerNG, RRD_Summary, Shellcmd, Snort, Speedtest, System_Patches.

                                K 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • K
                                  kevindd992002 @fireodo
                                  last edited by

                                  @fireodo said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

                                  @kevindd992002 said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

                                  Does this mean that "AES-NI CPU-based acceleration" is better than the "AES-NI and BSD Crypto Device" option? I'm still confused what the difference between those two are.

                                  Yes! The Apu2 does not have a dedicated Crypto-Device, the Crypto-Functions are integrated in the CPU (much faster). IMHO

                                  I see. But won't it use AES-NI anyway if the latter option is selected?

                                  Also, in the OpenVPN settings you should chhose None in the Hardware Acceleration field, correct?

                                  fireodoF 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • fireodoF
                                    fireodo @kevindd992002
                                    last edited by

                                    @kevindd992002 said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

                                    I see. But won't it use AES-NI anyway if the latter option is selected?

                                    Freebsd will look for the Crypto-Device wich is not existent and will not fallback to AES-NI CPU based.

                                    Also, in the OpenVPN settings you should chhose None in the Hardware Acceleration field, correct?

                                    I admit I dont know. Sorry.

                                    Kettop Mi4300YL CPU: i5-4300Y @ 1.60GHz RAM: 8GB Ethernet Ports: 4
                                    SSD: SanDisk pSSD-S2 16GB (ZFS) WiFi: WLE200NX
                                    pfsense 2.8.0 CE
                                    Packages: Apcupsd, Cron, Iftop, Iperf, LCDproc, Nmap, pfBlockerNG, RRD_Summary, Shellcmd, Snort, Speedtest, System_Patches.

                                    D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • D
                                      daemonix @fireodo
                                      last edited by

                                      @fireodo said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

                                      @kevindd992002 said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

                                      I see. But won't it use AES-NI anyway if the latter option is selected?

                                      Freebsd will look for the Crypto-Device wich is not existent and will not fallback to AES-NI CPU based.

                                      Also, in the OpenVPN settings you should chhose None in the Hardware Acceleration field, correct?

                                      I admit I dont know. Sorry.

                                      Yes this is it. I did all the possible test combinations.
                                      Indeed ONLY AES-NI should be selected

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • stephenw10S
                                        stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                        last edited by

                                        Yes, the only thing to avoid here is enabling both aes-ni and bsd crypto. Doing that will cause the aes device to register for crypto acceleration via the framework which adds a load of additional steps. It's much faster to use the available CPU instructions directly. As long as it's enabled in the BIOS openssl, and hence openvpn, should use aes-ni.

                                        Steve

                                        QinnQ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • QinnQ
                                          Qinn @stephenw10
                                          last edited by

                                          @stephenw10 said in PC Engines apu2 experiences:

                                          Yes, the only thing to avoid here is enabling both aes-ni and bsd crypto. Doing that will cause the aes device to register for crypto acceleration via the framework which adds a load of additional steps. It's much faster to use the available CPU instructions directly. As long as it's enabled in the BIOS openssl, and hence openvpn, should use aes-ni.

                                          Steve

                                          So you have to select AES-NI in pfSense and not in OpenVPN, then why is this option (Hardware crypto) present in OpenVPN config within pfSense? Could you please clarify this?

                                          Cheers Qinn

                                          Hardeware: Intel(R) Celeron(R) J4125 CPU @ 2.00GHz 102 GB mSATA SSD (ZFS)
                                          Firmware: Latest-stable-pfSense CE (amd64)
                                          Packages: pfBlockerNG devel-beta (beta tester) - Avahi - Notes - Ntopng - PIMD/udpbroadcastrelay - Service Watchdog - System Patches

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • stephenw10S
                                            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                                            last edited by

                                            I have personally never used that setting. But I have also never had a device with a specifically supported hardware crypto device which is where I would expect it to apply.
                                            In testing I did when we went to OpenVPN 2.4 it was better to leave that set to None in every case.

                                            Steve

                                            QinnQ jahonixJ 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 2
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