Raspberry Pi 4 with 8GB of RAM!

[SmokinMoJoe]

Hi All,

So with the Pi computers sporting 8GB of RAM is it possible to run pfSense on them? are there known USB 3.0 dongles that work with pfSense?

A quick search here shows that RPI was discussed some time ago and before RPI had 8GB of RAM.

Thanks,
Joe

[DaddyGo]

not the RAM will be the deciding factor (many colleagues run their own pfSense box with 2 and 4 GB RAM, however the NIC(s) will greatly important (basic conf. WAN /LAN = minimum 2 NIC)

by default, there is only one controller on the motherboard (suddenly I didn't even find out, that FreeBSD driver exists for this rPI LOM)
external USB NIC can be completely forgotten

specifically recommended NGFW NICs: Intel I340, I350, I210, I211

rPI is suitable for a home Pi - hole and is a good experimental tool but not NGFW with pfSense

[akuma1x]

Pfsense isn’t written for that platform. Your choices for hardware are either official Netgate, x86, ARM, Atom, AMD boxes, or virtualized on some other computer stuff.

The Pi 4 is an ARM, Broadcom BCM 2711 64 bit quad core @ 1.5ghz. This architecture requires BSP support from Broadcom which is a pain in the ass, as I understand. It would be possible to probably get it to run, but I don’t believe there are any off the shelf guides.

Jeff

[SmokinMoJoe]

@akuma1x
Do you know if I can run VMware 7.0 on the 8gb Pi and then ARM pfSense as a VM?

[DaddyGo]

@SmokinMoJoe
Excuse me, but these are crazy ideas, you create additional problems with virtualization.
Please read through the forum, to see what hardware conditions are and what network settings are required.
rPI is specifically unsuitable for pfSense!

I think this was also very correctly illustrated by the @akuma1x .
It is much more expedient if you can afford these: https://www.pfsense.org/products/

[akuma1x]

@SmokinMoJoe If you ebay, or find locally, either an HP T730 or T620 Plus, those would be MUCH better choices than a Raspberry Pi.

Here are some, as an example:

https://ebay.to/3dyfQMX
https://ebay.to/3cuPPwB
https://ebay.to/2MvOGKS
https://ebay.to/2Xwre6d

If you find one with the added network expansion card, you're that much farther ahead in the game. Good luck!

Jeff

[SmokinMoJoe]

@akuma1x

I would like one that does not have the Intel ME. I already have an AMD system that I am going to setup for pfSense that does not have any of the vPro backdoor OS running.

[SmokinMoJoe]

@akuma1x

I had an older AMD E-350 Processor with 8gb of ram and a pair of 120gb SanDisk SSD drives with an Intel i340 NIC. 26 watts of power, not the fastest at preparing pcBlockerNG-devel rules but it runs fine.

Thanks,
Joe

[SmokinMoJoe]

@DaddyGo

I have been using VMware ESXi since 3.0 and it is fine. You just need to have good hardware and not do stupid things. I have several vritual FreeNAS filers that use 1/2 the ram of the ESXi host, you just have to not do anything stupid. VMware ESXi reuduces some performance by 5% and others none or it works better than bare metal. I have never had any issues with VMware ESXi, hyper-V and KVM are another story and add too much complexity. VMware is not perfect and I wish they would embrace ceph, md, zfs, gluster and the opensouce switch OpenVSwitch.

you should check out how fast the KVM based linux beta works on Google Chromebooks, you don't even know it is runnind and everything is as fast as bare metal.

Thanks,
Joe

[stephenw10]

Try it and see. I imagine there would be some hurdles but if nothing else you'll probably learn some stuff.

Steve

[DaddyGo]

@SmokinMoJoe

I agree with you, we also use VMware ESXi and Xen hypervisors, but not for pfSense, these are super things, but in my opinion - not at the main front door.
(if a hypervisor system dies, a lot of things die with it)

[willardg16]

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