Network Interface Help

emo_121 · Apr 16, 2020, 12:20 PM

Hi I am interested in building my first pfsense box using some old sandy bridge i7 lying around
Im more concerned about the network card interface being supported.

Question 1)
If a card is supported by BSD 11, does it means it would be supported by PfSense 11.3 as well?
Specifically this card LREC9804BT http://www.lr-link.com/products/LREC9804BT.html

Question 2)
Based on my location and budget, getting a 2nd card or brand new card is close to impossible. Thus, the next best option was to settle for an
OEM intel X550-T2 card OR a Chinese branded card with X550-T2 chip
Would that work as well?

Im very new to the networking world. I have some IOT devices that i would like to configure to port forward, so able to access them(such as controlling a relay etc). Currently my IOT are work related and IT support wouldnt share too much about their infrastructure nor help with my personal project. xP

stephenw10 · Apr 16, 2020, 1:45 PM

Both Intel XL710 and X550 are supported yes.

The only thing to watch out for is this bug with the ixl driver that you may hit with the XL710: https://redmine.pfsense.org/issues/9123

Steve

emo_121 · Apr 17, 2020, 6:25 AM

I see som there would not be any issue if i were to get a chinese oem intel X550-t2 or even the previous generaion of x520 based card i suppose?

stephenw10 · Apr 17, 2020, 11:35 AM

Well assuming those cards did not fail, as we have seen some fake Intel cards do, then there should not be a problem.

You might want to look for OEM NICs from Dell, HP, IBM etc which use Intel chipsets and are much more likely to be genuine.

Of course if getting hardware is difficult that just use whatever you have, it can probably be made to work.

Steve