PFsense like a BOSS!

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Jetway Intel D525 Fanless Mini-ITX Motherboard with build-in 12V DC Power + 3x GbLAN Daughterboard.

Count 'em 1...2...3...4 gigE ports!

Check it out on eBay

No this isn't spam and I'm not the seller... I just have been looking for something like this for quite some time, and think it may be helpful to others.
 
As an eBay Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
I am sure there are better more powerful options out there but when you need to build a portable inline encryptor or VPN endpoint ... this is pretty amazing
 
Realtek nic's dont really bug me that much.

I'm leaning more towards i3 systems instead of Atoms these days. I made a post a week or so ago showing that the idle power consumption of an i3 and the newer Atoms are virtually identical. If you have an i3 you have power on demand. With 3 gigabit ports I would assume someone would be using vlans and/or a dmz. You could actually send data through there at gigabit speed. Would the Atom even be able to handle that? Keep in mind that while its dual core pfsense is only single threaded. With the i3 you would have power on demand for something like that. You'd also be able to repurpose the machine for something else in the future. How many uses does an atom system really have??
 
Speaking along these lines, can a person get a motherboard similar to those used in Untangle Appliances (4-5 Intel NICS onboard on a small board)? Or are they custom made for UA?
 
I have an atom system here that used to be my PFsense setup, I have no use now I switched to an 1841, anything that the atom can run I may as well put on to my VMWare box... its a shame.
 
There appears to be an issue with some realtek nics that occurs during heavy loads, that causes the port to lock up. Some people see the issue, some don't....everyone who does see the issue usually has a significant load on that port and it is ALWAYS a realtek nic. Generally the PFsense Community shys away from Realtek nics for that very reason. So its a general statement based on some applicable statistics. Rumor is that the PFsense developers are working on a fix, but no fix has been officially issued at this time.
 
s0lid said:
LS-574-3DB.jpg

http://www.commell.com.tw/Product/SBC/LS-574.HTM

LE-575-3DL.jpg

http://www.commell.com.tw/Product/SBC/LE-575.HTM

Commell got these nice little boards with 4-6 onboard Intel nics :p
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Now THATS pFsense like a BOSS! I dont see anything about cost. DAMMIT. And I just spent some money on building a new pfsense box and you go and show me this. More junk to the spare parts thread lol.

Jay_oasis said:
I have an atom system here that used to be my PFsense setup, I have no use now I switched to an 1841, anything that the atom can run I may as well put on to my VMWare box... its a shame.
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Exactly what I mean in my previous post. Unless you NEED something physically very compact I'd rather go i3 anyday.
 
Best price guess..... given the LE-575 is $375 the Commell LS-574 should cost about $600
 
aaronearles said:
pfSense doesn't support them...
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Actually..it does support quite a few of them...it just doesn't run as well on most of them. Many typical users won't know the difference, but when you start cranking hard on the QoS settings...you'll see differences..the realtek units won't be as effective with QoS as systems running on good Intel NICs. And for long periods of uptime...you'll find some systems on realteks need reboots much more frequently than systems running on solid Intel NICs.
 
I had issues with QoS enabled with realtek gbit nics. It would drop packets or spike ping wise when heavily loaded.
 
The Price for the : Commell LE-575 5.25" Fanless Embedded Controller with the Intel Atom N270 processor and 4 x Intel Gigabit LAN is $430.
 
Dash hasn't pimped untangle in awhile.

Untangle FTMFW!!!111
 
Nice! I currently have a Poweredge 1650 running pfsense. It does have 4 ports, but pretty sure they're just 100mb, which is more than enough for internet considering I can go 5mbps at most if all the planets align just right, on a 23C day with no clouds.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Nice! I currently have a Poweredge 1650 running pfsense. It does have 4 ports, but pretty sure they're just 100mb, which is more than enough for internet considering I can go 5mbps at most if all the planets align just right, on a 23C day with no clouds.
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Two of those (built-in) should be GbE.
 
Hmm it's quite possible. Not sure how to check without bringing it down though. The nics probably are server grade either way.
 
jadams said:
Keep in mind that while its dual core pfsense is only single threaded.
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That's not exactly true. Yes the most CPU-intensive part of PF is giant locked so it can only use one CPU, but NIC interrupt handlers, and every other process running on the system, will use additional cores/CPUs. There is a benefit to having SMP, though only in larger scale where you have enough load to distribute (exactly what that scale is depends on CPU speed), though that's true of SMP with anything.

On Realtek NICs, some implementations are terrible and cause all kinds of problems, and some are perfectly fine. The gigabit cards don't seem to have any of the issues that got Realtek NICs a bad name with some of their 100 Mb cards. But they aren't the same quality and performance of hardware as server class NICs, Intel and Broadcom primarily. You'll never buy a piece of server hardware with Realtek NICs, they're pretty much always either Intel or Broadcom, and there's good reason for that. For serious high performance usage, I wouldn't touch Realtek, but for most deployments they're perfectly fine (with the exception of the buggy few which I believe are strictly 100 Mb).
 
tgs said:
Yeah, I wish I could find these lanner boxes for sale outside of the overpriced pfsense community.
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Netgate is the only place I'm aware of selling those so I presume that's who you're referring to. Expensive compared to what you can build a similar platform for if you only need a couple NICs, yes, but it's not cheap hardware. They're far more expensive even in large quantity than what you can build an Atom with a couple onboard NICs. Unless you need 5 or 6 NICs (which is why they're pricey), it's not justifiable. Considering an Intel PRO/1000 4 port PCI-e card is over $400 USD on its own, it's easily justifiable and cost effective if you need that many NICs.
 
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