Hardware list: Alix 2d13 and 6f2 + b/g wifi + UMTS/HSPA+

dkozel

Hello all. My dad just requested that I spec out, assemble/configure, and install two PFSense firewalls for homes. The reward, other than the experience and sense of satisfaction was that I could throw in one for myself. So I spend the last four days browsing this handy forum, the documentation, and various blogs. Here's what I've got, thank you for any feedback.

The hardware for the two homes is dead simple, just a pair of Alix 2D13 boards. They're popular, well supported, and should easily deal with the predicted (low) traffic. Standard case and power brick.

Then this CF card for all three systems: http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-CompactFlash-Memory-SDCFX-004G-X46/dp/B004UC9HSA
4GB should be more than plenty even for dual booting test versions or just having fun. It supports UDMA which I understand used to be problematic sometimes. Has support changed or is that still not entirely working?

The one for myself gets a bit more fun. I'm likely going with an Alix 6F2 board which has one each mini PCI and mini PCI-E (USB electrical interface only). Into this I want to add an 802.11 b/g(/n) mini PCI card and a mini PCI-E card covering at least UMTS and HSPA+ in the US.

For WIFI I'm looking at one of these cards:
DNMA-92 Atheros ( a/b/g/n) AR9220
DCMA-82 Atheros 6G (250 mW a/b/g) AR5006

I think I'll likely go for the DCMA-82 as its on the fully supported list and should run out of the box. Later I would really like to get a card which supports N into the box even though I know that N speeds aren't avaliable. I couldn't route those speeds anyways on the Alix so that doesn't matter, its just the frequency support which would be really nice. Can anyone comment on the 92? I know FreeBSD 9 supports it, is it difficult to build that into PFSense at compile time?

For the cellular uplink I'd also love to get LTE on the board, but that gets a bit expensive for a feature I'm unlikely to use often so I'm leaning strongly towards the Huawei EM680 module. The list of supported protocols and bands is impressive: UMTS 800/850/900/AWS/1900/2100 GSM 850/900/1800/1900 CDMA 800/1900 GPRS/EDGE WCDMA/HSPA HSDPA/HSUPA HSPA+ CDMA/EVDO GPS The GPS could be a fun thing to play with as I'm hoping to be able to deploy this at events and emergency drill/incidents.
https://techship.se/products/huawei-em680/

Again, thanks for reading this far and I'd love any comments. As a material sign of my thanks I promise to write about my experience setting these up and do some performance tests with them.

doktornotor

@dkozel:

Then this CF card for all three systems: http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-CompactFlash-Memory-SDCFX-004G-X46/dp/B004UC9HSA
4GB should be more than plenty even for dual booting test versions or just having fun. It supports UDMA which I understand used to be problematic sometimes. Has support changed or is that still not entirely working?

Well, I tried with this one and…


$ dmesg | grep -i dma
atapci0: <amd cs5536="" udma100="" controller="">port 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6,0x170-0x177,0x376,0xff00-0xff0f at device 15.2 on pci0
ad0: 1919MB <cf 20110221="" 2gb="">at ata0-master UDMA100</cf></amd>