PfSense on a Dell Latitude E6420

FrankZappa

Thanks NollipfSense.

FrankZappa

@stephenw10 Thanks Stephen. Is the Express Card Slot considered a USB NIC?

stephenw10

Nope. Or at least it probably isn't; ignore me!

Express card does provide USB so it can accept modems etc but I would not expect a NIC to use that. This looks like it uses the Realtek RTL8110 which is a PCIe chip.

Steve

NollipfSense

@FrankZappa it's used like a PCIe slot.

FrankZappa

@stephenw10 Any idea if I can use this excpress card adapter with pf?
Sonnet Technologies Presto Gigabit Ethernet Pro ExpressCard/34

https://www.amazon.com/Sonnet-Technologies-Gigabit-Ethernet-ExpressCard/dp/B00I8MMWTY

It appears to have a Broadcom chip (I think). Not sure if this is compatible. Thoughts?

stephenw10

Without knowing what the actual chipset they're using is there's no way to know.

FrankZappa

@stephenw10 If it's Broadcom, will it work?

FrankZappa

@FrankZappa I read where it works fine with Linux with it's Broadcom NetXtreme BCM57762 controller. No idea if this is compatible w PF

whosmatt

If it is indeed the BCM57762 it should work with the bge driver:

https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=bge&sektion=4

FrankZappa

@whosmatt Thanks whosmatt. Do I need to install the driver or will pf already recognize it ?

whosmatt

You shouldn't need to install anything.

NollipfSense

@FrankZappa I have used Sonnet before on a MacBook Pro I had contemplate using as a pfSense box. Yes, it has Broadcom and it works ... just a little issue running IDS/IPS because it's in emulator mode with Netmap instead of the full interaction with Netmap. BTW - your Intel -82579LM Gigabit is supports the new Intel driver, so no problem.

aponomarenko

EC1000S is 10EC:8168. It's supported by FreeBSD according to the list of supported device IDs. Also we have a lot of successful probes of this chip in the BSD hardware database.

FrankZappa

@NollipfSense Thanks. So if I use this card on the WAN side (use internal 82579LM for LAN) shouldn't it work fine if I enable IDS/IPS? I would think using this card on the WAN just passes and receives all traffic, while the 82579LM does all the IDS/IPS, firewall, and OpenVpn traffic...or do I have that backwards?
Thanks

FrankZappa

@aponomarenko Thanks. So I went with another card: Sonnet Technologies Presto Gigabit Ethernet Pro ExpressCard/34 which has a Broadcom chip (BCM57762). I haven't used it yet, but hoping it will work.

NollipfSense

@FrankZappa said in PfSense on a Dell Latitude E6420:

use internal 82579LM for LAN) shouldn't it work fine if I enable IDS/IPS?

Yes

FrankZappa

@frankzappa Sorry for the long delay in updating this year old thread. Bottom Line: This setup is working great for almost a year now.
Dell 6420 laptop with i7, 128GB SSD and 8GB RAM

PfSense Version 2.4.5-RELEASE-p1 (amd64)

CPU Type Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2620M CPU @ 2.70GHz
Current: 800 MHz, Max: 2701 MHz
4 CPUs: 1 package(s) x 2 core(s) x 2 hardware threads
AES-NI CPU Crypto: Yes (active)

Sonnet Technologies Presto Gigabit Ethernet Pro ExpressCard/34 which has a Broadcom chip (BCM57762) which covers down on LAN connection.

The really nice thing I purchased a new battery for laptop. When the electricity goes out, it still stays running for over an hour, which is a nice feature.

Many thanks to all of you for helping me out on this.

FrankZappa

@frankzappa said in PfSense on a Dell Latitude E6420:

Presto Gigabit Ethernet Pro ExpressCard

Correction: The Presto Gigabit Ethernet Pro ExpressCard is connected to the WAN side. Works great. VPN is rock steady as well VLAN's and all my plug ins. I decided not to run Suricata as it takes too much work to dial that puppy in. Solid performance.