New hardware

[JKnott]

@jwj

One other thing I just noticed about the Netgate box. It doesn't appear to have a video port. That's not critical, as I do have a USB serial port, but I have a 4 port HDMI/USB KVM, which I used to connect to my old firewall. I could just switch from my computer to my firewall as needed.

[A Former User]

@jknott Yeah. The Qotom has a HDMI port and a serial port. I'm assuming you can select the HDMI in bios settings and that will work perfectly.

If I need to get at the console it's because something is very wrong. Last thing I want to do is mess around with a serial console cable and putty.

[JKnott]

@jwj said in New hardware:

Last thing I want to do is mess around with a serial console cable and putty.

I've used serial ports enough times over the years, that's not an issue for me. I'd just need a gender bender, as that appears to be a male connector on it. I've made up enough of those and probably have a couple around here. I bought that adapter years ago, to configure telecom gear.

[A Former User]

So, pros and cons of each?

Shortly, summer, they'll be running the same version of pfSense, pfSense +.

I think the SG line will be "tuned" (system tunable, etc) out of the box, I'm not sure that's a big differentiator.

[bingo600]

@jknott said in New hardware:

@jwj said in New hardware:

Last thing I want to do is mess around with a serial console cable and putty.

I've used serial ports enough times over the years, that's not an issue for me. I'd just need a gender bender, as that appears to be a male connector on it. I've made up enough of those and probably have a couple around here. I bought that adapter years ago, to configure telecom gear.

I'm using the Qotoms w. serial.
You can set (in bios) "Console" as serial (Ie. VT100) , and then even the Bios settings can be accessed via "Putty".

You need a (USB) Serial , and a NULL-Modem cable.

/Bingo

[fireodo]

@bingo600 said in New hardware:

@jknott said in New hardware:

@jwj said in New hardware:

Last thing I want to do is mess around with a serial console cable and putty.

I'm using the Qotoms w. serial.

So do I here! Its not exactly a Qotom - I bought that Box from a Shop called Kettop - but looks like a Qotom. (I guess its a rebranded Qotom because dmidecode says: Product Name: Q3XXG4-P)
I choose to add myself the RAM because I read that the RAM those boxes come with are not quite reliable.

You can set (in bios) "Console" as serial (Ie. VT100) , and then even the Bios settings can be accessed via "Putty".

You need a (USB) Serial , and a NULL-Modem cable.

Exact! (I had a original serial cable and a machine with a real serial port - left over from Fido-Modem-Times )

/Bingo

Regards,
fireodo

[JKnott]

@jknott

I have just ordered the Qotom.

[noplan]

@jknott

my folks are checkin this piece of hardware right now!
thanks for reminder.
brNP

[JKnott]

@jknott

The new computer has arrived. It took 1 week from Hong Kong to here, including 1 day wasted by DHL claiming I declined delivery when they didn't even come to my door.

One thing I've noticed is pfsense shows the AES-NI instructions are available, but inactive. Will they become active, once I have my VPN set up?

[Vollans]

@jknott said in New hardware:

One thing I've noticed is pfsense shows the AES-NI instructions are available, but inactive. Will they become active, once I have my VPN set up?

Advanced settings, Misc, part way down select Cryptographic Hardware dropdown and choose AES-NI :)

[JKnott]

@vollans

Done.

tnx

[JKnott]

@jknott

I just ran speedtest and here are my results:

http://www.speedtest.net/result/10868527865

This is on a 500/20 connection and I had never seen more than about 575 down previously. I guess that i5 makes a bit of difference, compared to the Athlon 3200+ I had before. It's also faster booting up.

[A Former User]

@jknott Nice. That's way over provisioned. I've seen 10-15% over but never that much. Shhhhh.... Don't say anything or they'll reprovision your service :)

How's buffer bloat with your service?

[JKnott]

@jwj

My ISP almost always has better than advertised bandwidth, but with the new firewall, I'm getting even better than before. I haven't noticed any buffer bloat, but then I haven't checked.

[A Former User]

@jknott I'm curious. http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest will measure buffer bloat.

~700-20 is very async, I would expect some buffer bloat. fq-codel limiter will fix that right up. Although if you have a nice cable modem it might be handled by the modem...

[JKnott]

@jwj

Here are my results. It doesn't seem to indicate bloat.

[A Former User]

@jknott

This is what I see. Sometimes you have to run it a few times to get it to measure buffer bloat. I know that makes no sense but that is what I have experienced.

[JKnott]

@jwj said in New hardware:

This is what I see. Sometimes you have to run it a few times to get it to measure buffer bloat. I know that makes no sense but that is what I have experienced.

This morning, I ran it once and it gives me an A for buffer bloat.

[A Former User]

@jknott That’s great. How do you like it so far? Feel back to normal?

[JKnott]

@jwj

Yep. Just 40 Mb down and IPv4 only was torture!

Beyond that additional bandwidth, I haven't noticed much difference from what I had before, though I will be using a lot less electricity.

These Qotom computers appear to be well built.