PFsense 2.3.1 on Intel 1900

lhock98

Hi bro,

i just received my new 4 ports router from chinese seller, had been up and running pfsense 2.3.1 for the pass 4-5 days system was very well no hang no lag. total of 4 ports yet i configured 1WAN and 3 LAN all ports running well. here are the spec. power using external dc12v step down tranformer as can see from the picture

1)intel celeron j1900 @2.0ghz
2)2gb ddr3 so-dimm (able to support up to 8gb)
3)8gb msata ssd
4) 4*intel 82583v Gigabit Ethernet Controller
5)onboard 2 msata slot and 3 sata

Guest

Nice, I would try out to high up the RAM and get the hands on a null modem cable or serial to USB cable
to have contact over the console if needed at someday. Other things you could try out are;

Enable PowerD (hi adaptive)
enable TRIM support for the mSATA
high up if needed the mbuf size (with more RAM)

AndrewZ

I'm curious if BIOS updates are available for such a board.

lhock98

@AndrewZ:

I'm curious if BIOS updates are available for such a board.

BIOS setting stated able to support win7 and win10.

oletuv

@BlueKobold:

Nice, I would try out to high up the RAM and get the hands on a null modem cable or serial to USB cable
to have contact over the console if needed at someday. Other things you could try out are;

Enable PowerD (hi adaptive)

enable TRIM support for the mSATA

high up if needed the mbuf size (with more RAM)

Where in the WebGUI do I find the setting for mbuf size?

lhock98

as already check the powered cpu clock speed from 1900mhz drop to 1328mhz, cpu temp shown @ under 60 'C.

Guest

as already check the powered cpu clock speed from 1900mhz drop to 1328mhz, cpu temp shown @ under 60 'C.

That is good, if more load is hitting the pfSense box it can be scaling up to 1993MHz then and goes lower if
not so much load is there.

TRIM support is enabled for the mSATA? Or is it another storage device?
Perhaps it is not TRIM compatible you should ask the seller first about that in my opinion!

Where in the WebGUI do I find the setting for mbuf size?

Please read here about that link carefully because if there is not enough RAM in your system
you can be ending up in a booting loop. Link

lhock98

been running this board for the pass few days, so far so good temperture maintained at 58-62C. opt1 and opt2 having no problem bridge to LAN. meaning opt1and opt2 can act as a gigabytes switch.

edwardwong

@lhock98:

been running this board for the pass few days, so far so good temperture maintained at 58-62C. opt1 and opt2 having no problem bridge to LAN. meaning opt1and opt2 can act as a gigabytes switch.

Nope, bridging ports together =/= switch

lhock98

LAN bridged opt1 and op2 = extra 2 port switch

@edwardwong:

@lhock98:

been running this board for the pass few days, so far so good temperture maintained at 58-62C. opt1 and opt2 having no problem bridge to LAN. meaning opt1and opt2 can act as a gigabytes switch.

Nope, bridging ports together =/= switch

edwardwong

@lhock98:

LAN bridged opt1 and op2 = extra 2 port switch

@edwardwong:

@lhock98:

been running this board for the pass few days, so far so good temperture maintained at 58-62C. opt1 and opt2 having no problem bridge to LAN. meaning opt1and opt2 can act as a gigabytes switch.

Nope, bridging ports together =/= switch

The performance is never the same, bridge are software basis which takes up some cpu power while switches we are using nowadays will use ASIC + buffers to achieve much higher throughput. Another reason I do not suggest this is because of the unknown PCI-E bandwidth, the number of PCI-E lanes supported is very limited, we don't know if manufacturer is squeezing all ethernet ports in a 1x/2x/4x (PCI-E 2.0 4x max supported by J1900). Note that most Intel J1900 platform motherboard on sale right now offer only PCI-E x1 for extra devices, Intel 82583V is a PCI-E 1.0 device, which means when you have > 2 LAN ports running at full speed together will saturate the PCI-E slot. I hope the manufacturer of this firewall is assigning PCI-E x2 to all LAN chip otherwise there would be an issue. May be you can try to test it and see.

Guest

A switch is using a CPU and switch chips that are doing the work in silicon on top of this often a
FPGA/ASIC is in use that will speed up things massively, so a bridge as a function is not the same.

lhock98

so how do i test it out the ethernet controller?using what hardware to test?

@edwardwong:

@lhock98:

LAN bridged opt1 and op2 = extra 2 port switch

@edwardwong:

@lhock98:

been running this board for the pass few days, so far so good temperture maintained at 58-62C. opt1 and opt2 having no problem bridge to LAN. meaning opt1and opt2 can act as a gigabytes switch.

Nope, bridging ports together =/= switch

The performance is never the same, bridge are software basis which takes up some cpu power while switches we are using nowadays will use ASIC + buffers to achieve much higher throughput. Another reason I do not suggest this is because of the unknown PCI-E bandwidth, the number of PCI-E lanes supported is very limited, we don't know if manufacturer is squeezing all ethernet ports in a 1x/2x/4x (PCI-E 2.0 4x max supported by J1900). Note that most Intel J1900 platform motherboard on sale right now offer only PCI-E x1 for extra devices, Intel 82583V is a PCI-E 1.0 device, which means when you have > 2 LAN ports running at full speed together will saturate the PCI-E slot. I hope the manufacturer of this firewall is assigning PCI-E x2 to all LAN chip otherwise there would be an issue. May be you can try to test it and see.

edwardwong

@lhock98:

so how do i test it out the ethernet controller?using what hardware to test?

@edwardwong:

@lhock98:

LAN bridged opt1 and op2 = extra 2 port switch

@edwardwong:

@lhock98:

been running this board for the pass few days, so far so good temperture maintained at 58-62C. opt1 and opt2 having no problem bridge to LAN. meaning opt1and opt2 can act as a gigabytes switch.

Nope, bridging ports together =/= switch

The performance is never the same, bridge are software basis which takes up some cpu power while switches we are using nowadays will use ASIC + buffers to achieve much higher throughput. Another reason I do not suggest this is because of the unknown PCI-E bandwidth, the number of PCI-E lanes supported is very limited, we don't know if manufacturer is squeezing all ethernet ports in a 1x/2x/4x (PCI-E 2.0 4x max supported by J1900). Note that most Intel J1900 platform motherboard on sale right now offer only PCI-E x1 for extra devices, Intel 82583V is a PCI-E 1.0 device, which means when you have > 2 LAN ports running at full speed together will saturate the PCI-E slot. I hope the manufacturer of this firewall is assigning PCI-E x2 to all LAN chip otherwise there would be an issue. May be you can try to test it and see.

I guess you can setup 3 PC on 3 bridged port, and run iperf test.

webdawg

@lhock98:

Hi bro,

i just received my new 4 ports router from chinese seller, had been up and running pfsense 2.3.1 for the pass 4-5 days system was very well no hang no lag. total of 4 ports yet i configured 1WAN and 3 LAN all ports running well. here are the spec. power using external dc12v step down tranformer as can see from the picture

1)intel celeron j1900 @2.0ghz
2)2gb ddr3 so-dimm (able to support up to 8gb)
3)8gb msata ssd
4) 4*intel 82583v Gigabit Ethernet Controller
5)onboard 2 msata slot and 3 sata

Can you please post where you got it from/ link to it?

lhock98

@lhock98:

http://m.intl.taobao.com/detail/detail.html?id=37328846799&wp_m=seller_items_-1&wp_pk=shop/index_22920551_2255811&from=inshop&wp_app=weapp

i paid sgd178 before shipping to my country

lhock98

@webdawg:

@lhock98:

Hi bro,

i just received my new 4 ports router from chinese seller, had been up and running pfsense 2.3.1 for the pass 4-5 days system was very well no hang no lag. total of 4 ports yet i configured 1WAN and 3 LAN all ports running well. here are the spec. power using external dc12v step down tranformer as can see from the picture

1)intel celeron j1900 @2.0ghz
2)2gb ddr3 so-dimm (able to support up to 8gb)
3)8gb msata ssd
4) 4*intel 82583v Gigabit Ethernet Controller
5)onboard 2 msata slot and 3 sata

Can you please post where you got it from/ link to it?

https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=37328846799&_u=pke88ot3f0f

lhock98

is this the output result you want?my pfsense run as a server, pc as a client

@edwardwong:

@lhock98:

so how do i test it out the ethernet controller?using what hardware to test?

@edwardwong:

@lhock98:

LAN bridged opt1 and op2 = extra 2 port switch

@edwardwong:

@lhock98:

been running this board for the pass few days, so far so good temperture maintained at 58-62C. opt1 and opt2 having no problem bridge to LAN. meaning opt1and opt2 can act as a gigabytes switch.

Nope, bridging ports together =/= switch

The performance is never the same, bridge are software basis which takes up some cpu power while switches we are using nowadays will use ASIC + buffers to achieve much higher throughput. Another reason I do not suggest this is because of the unknown PCI-E bandwidth, the number of PCI-E lanes supported is very limited, we don't know if manufacturer is squeezing all ethernet ports in a 1x/2x/4x (PCI-E 2.0 4x max supported by J1900). Note that most Intel J1900 platform motherboard on sale right now offer only PCI-E x1 for extra devices, Intel 82583V is a PCI-E 1.0 device, which means when you have > 2 LAN ports running at full speed together will saturate the PCI-E slot. I hope the manufacturer of this firewall is assigning PCI-E x2 to all LAN chip otherwise there would be an issue. May be you can try to test it and see.

I guess you can setup 3 PC on 3 bridged port, and run iperf test.

dreamslacker

@lhock98:

is this the output result you want?my pfsense run as a server, pc as a client

Nope.

What you need to do is hook up a computer to one of the bridged ports as a server (or client).

Then test iperf from another computer connected to another of the bridged ports (can be through a switch).

What you want to do is to test the performance when the traffic flows across pfSense from 2 of the bridged ports to determine if there is an impact to the throughput (there ought to be for this class of equipment).

lhock98

just tested 2 computers result 0-0.10 sec 1.11Gbytes 949Mbits/sec but pfsense server used up 18-20% cpu load. if i directly connected to my switch pfsense cpu will shown 0% load.

@dreamslacker:

@lhock98:

is this the output result you want?my pfsense run as a server, pc as a client

Nope.

What you need to do is hook up a computer to one of the bridged ports as a server (or client).

Then test iperf from another computer connected to another of the bridged ports (can be through a switch).

What you want to do is to test the performance when the traffic flows across pfSense from 2 of the bridged ports to determine if there is an impact to the throughput (there ought to be for this class of equipment).