Overall Stability of wireless?
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For an industrial/commercial application, I am planning to run pfsense on a SBC as a light gateway/server. I require N wireless and due to size/budget constrains, I would prefer to use a (mini)-PCI based solution as opposed to a separate AP. I have looked at a few topics and it seems like many people do not recommend this setup.
To those of you who are using a wireless card with pfsense: how stable is the connection? Would you recommend it for production enviroments? Are the speed and range comparable to a mid-range consumer wireless router?
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Why would you even consider it?
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Why would you even consider it?
As I mentioned, this needs to be a single small box. Is there something inherently wrong with this setup even if I am not using pfsense?
I should also mention that the number of clients (wired and wireless) will be around 6. The wireless clients are going to use little bandwidth (~5Mbps). I am more concerned about size and reliability than throughput. -
Yes.
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Neither are your project descriptions and expectations.
You can't expect to say "industrial/commercial" and get a meaningful response. Is this a 200Ksqft warehouse or a 2-room dentist office?
I cannot think of any use cases where I would recommend a pfSense-controlled wi-fi adapter. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
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If you want a stable access point ($65 at amazon): https://www.ubnt.com/unifi/unifi-ap/
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To those of you who are using a wireless card with pfsense: how stable is the connection? Would you recommend it for production enviroments? Are the speed and range comparable to a mid-range consumer wireless router?
You probably already know this if you have searched the forums - but I gave up on it. Supposedly wireless has gotten better in 2.2.2, but it was so infuriating in older versions that I haven't even tried it yet. Even if it worked great, I can't imagine that an internal card would function as well (range, stability, config options, etc.) as a mid-range access point or router.
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A whole lot of posts acting like its broke when there are lots of people here are using it fine. I am getting tired of defending the wireless of FreeBSD.. Same people over and over bashing it while not infact using it. Really gets tiring..
I'm managing 3 commercial mifi apps right now with 3 more in the pipe. Alls i got to say is Thank You pfSense.
I have installed systems on 2 tugboats and one on a semi truck. Owners love it. Do you want references?
So all depends what you doing with it and if it within the realm of possible. I hear nothing you asked for as unobtainable, especially with quality embedded gear. 6 users are totally fine. If all six are trying to download huge files simultaneously then forget it..
So please consider all the pfSense wireless users who don't want to speak up against "Team Access Point" -
What I said was…
"I can't imagine that an internal card would function as well (range, stability, config options, etc.) as a mid-range access point or router"
That statement doesn't say that it "won't" or "can't" work in the right situation or that it can't be setup to be stable. However, it is completely illogical to argue that an internal wireless card purposed as an access point will EVER function as well as a quality, purpose built wireless access point. In addition, in older versions, I personally experienced situations where changing values in the pfSense GUI caused kernel core dumps - and I was using wireless cards recommended on these forums…
So... say what you want. I'll stand by my statement.
