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    Will Pfsesne support Marvell AQC113C-B1-C Nics

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • S
      Swiss-army-knife-of-tech
      last edited by

      I am considering getting a new box to replace current system, however the one I have set my eyes on, has 2x Marvell AQC113C-B1-C 10Gb-t nics.

      I just wanted to ask if there are any plans to add supported drivers in any future updates?

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      • E
        elvisimprsntr @Swiss-army-knife-of-tech
        last edited by elvisimprsntr

        @Swiss-army-knife-of-tech

        NIC driver support is driven by FreeBSD, not pfSense itself.

        Save your sanity and stick with Intel NICs

        S C 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • S
          Swiss-army-knife-of-tech @elvisimprsntr
          last edited by

          @elvisimprsntr Not the answer I wanted but the answer I had expected ๐Ÿ˜–

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          • stephenw10S
            stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
            last edited by

            Others have made it work for earlier versions of that but it requires some messing about. And because it's not included in the default install it makes reinstalls and upgrades much more difficult.

            See: https://forum.netgate.com/topic/155264/can-t-assign-nic-aquantia-corp-aqc107

            But additionally as far as I can see the FreeBSD driver doesn't yet support the 113 NIC:
            https://github.com/Aquantia/aqtion-freebsd/blob/master/aq_main.c#L90

            Steve

            S 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • S
              Swiss-army-knife-of-tech @stephenw10
              last edited by

              @stephenw10 Thanks for this info. I hope later down this may not be the case. Since I practice to think of my pfsense as an appliance, I would rather not tweak it but will take a look.

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              • C
                clarknova @elvisimprsntr
                last edited by

                @elvisimprsntr said in Will Pfsesne support Marvell AQC113C-B1-C Nics:

                Save your sanity and stick with Intel NICs

                Generally great advice, but the problem I found while recently searching for a tiny firewall platform for home use is that any Intel-based 10 GBE options use an ancient chipset that Intel has EOLed. I found very limited options in this segment that basically boiled down to an unsupported (too old) Intel chipset or an unsupported (too new) Marvell chipset, so here we are asking for driver support on the apparently only new option out there.

                db

                patient0P 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • patient0P
                  patient0 @clarknova
                  last edited by

                  @clarknova said in Will Pfsesne support Marvell AQC113C-B1-C Nics:

                  ... tiny firewall platform for home use is that any Intel-based 10 GBE options use an ancient chipset that Intel has EOLed.

                  Do you me mind asking, does it matter if it's EOLed by Intel? You bought a new tiny computer with 10GbE - e.g. Intel 82599 based - NICs. They are widely supported by OS' and isn't that what matters? And I would hope since you bought it new, you get a replacement if there's a defect.

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                  • C
                    clarknova @patient0
                    last edited by

                    @patient0 said in Will Pfsesne support Marvell AQC113C-B1-C Nics:

                    does it matter if it's EOLed by Intel?

                    It doesn't matter as long as the hardware continues working as expected and no new bugs or security holes emerge. I know Intel NICs are generally good, but when I pay for new hardware I like the peace of mind knowing that the vendor still supports it.

                    There's a trade-off of course. In this case you can take your chances with EOL hardware or you can take your chances with less robust hardware that has vendor support but also lacks a driver in FreeBSD.

                    db

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                    • stephenw10S
                      stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                      last edited by

                      Still no uptream support for the 113 version as far as I can see.

                      But personally I'd choose an x520 over that every time. ๐Ÿ˜‰

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