luma
Premium
join:2004-08-17
Ottawa, ON
 ·surpasshosting
 ·Rogers Hi-Speed
| pfsense recommended NIC
Hi everyone,
on the weekend I am going to go out and buy 3 network cards and build me a router using some hardware that I have at home (older athlon)
I read the PFsense hardware page and it supports a LOT of network cards.
what are you all running?
this will be a dual wan router using 8/1 connections so nothing super crazy or special but quite a few packets in and out.
I was thinking some dlink DFE530's or Intel pro/100's
no need for Gigabit since the connection is 8/1.
Any other hints/tips/recommendations?
have a great day.
Luma |
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leibold
Premium,MVM
join:2002-07-09
Sunnyvale, CA
clubs: 
| If those two are your only choices, the Intel pro/100's are in my opinion the better choice.
If it were me however I would use a single 4-port DFE-570TX (uses Digital/Intel Tulip chips which I prefer for 10/100 NICs) when building a router.
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luma
Premium
join:2004-08-17
Ottawa, ON
·surpasshosting
·Rogers Hi-Speed
| the DFE-570TX is a nice card but with a ~250$ price tag it would be a bit difficult to convince the wife :P
I am just looking for something half decent, it does not have to be server class top of the line. as long as it is pretty good and reliable and lasts a year or 2.
Thanks for the opignon though that is a nice card.
Luma |
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deblin
Dark Side of the Moon
Premium,MVM
join:2001-09-01
Middletown, DE
| I would get em cards (Intel 10/100/1000). They are excellent and well supported. If you're on a budget, get Intel 10/100 cards. But if you want to plan ahead if/when you'll want gigE on the LAN side, look at em cards.
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luma
Premium
join:2004-08-17
Ottawa, ON
·surpasshosting
·Rogers Hi-Speed
| ya I was looking at some EM cards but I don't see the point in spending the extra few dollars.
I have gigabit at home but this will be a router that will route 16megabits of data maximum. the machine won't be used for anything else except as a router. Unless rogers really really upgrades my connection :P
Luma |
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deblin
Dark Side of the Moon
Premium,MVM
join:2001-09-01
Middletown, DE
| Just figured if you wound up using it as a file server later on, you'd save yourself from having to buy a gigE card then. But fxp (Intel 10/100) should be fine in the near term. 
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luma
Premium
join:2004-08-17
Ottawa, ON
·surpasshosting
·Rogers Hi-Speed
| I am a geek I already have a file server
I use FreeNAS for the fileserver
going to use PFsense (for dual wan) on the router.
I am probably going to go with a soekris type small router later on with pfsense but the wife won't let me buy one just now
I might go gigabit right now anyways and later on use the cards as spares.
which model of card for intel/1000 is recommended? from newegg or something.
Luma |
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deblin
Dark Side of the Moon
Premium,MVM
join:2001-09-01
Middletown, DE | I have the Desktop adapters I think, and they perform great. But, I'm a cheap ass
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luma
Premium
join:2004-08-17
Ottawa, ON
·surpasshosting
·Rogers Hi-Speed
| ya I am going to use the desktop adapters as well
my server (if you remember the chat we had about performance with freebsd 7 and mysql) has 3 intel pro/1000 server adapters. they are super nice but I rather not pay the price just for a cheap router.
Luma |
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deblin
Dark Side of the Moon
Premium,MVM
join:2001-09-01
Middletown, DE
| Hrm the prices are more expensive than I remember paying, so perhaps these cards are better than what I have. But here's what I'd recommend from newegg:
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···33106123
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luma
Premium
join:2004-08-17
Ottawa, ON | I can live with 33 dollars compared to the lovely DFE570 (which would be nice to have though!)
I will talk to my computer guy in town and see if I can get a deal (need 3 after all)
Luma |
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sporkme
drop the crantini and move it, sister
Premium,MVM
join:2000-07-01
Morristown, NJ
·Optimum Online
| reply to luma
FreeBSD 6.x (which pfsense is based on) supports pretty much all of the $15 Staples ethernet cards. My box has a dc(4), xl(4) and an sis(4). Other than the 3com, those are all just $10-$15 cheapies.
Hardware list is here:
»www.freebsd.org/releases/6.2R/ha···ETHERNET |
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luma
Premium
join:2004-08-17
Ottawa, ON
·surpasshosting
·Rogers Hi-Speed
| Sporkme thanks for the reply.
as I said in my main post I did take a look at the Freebsd hardware page but because it support sooo many cards I wanted to know what people are running.
thanks for letting me know that you run the dc/xl and sis without problem. will look into those.
Luma |
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Cabal
Premium
join:2007-01-21
Boston, MA
| reply to luma
I recommend the $33 Intel 1000GT (em) cards, I've bought a bunch recently and their performance and support is great. The driver is also regularly updated and the maintainer is an Intel employee and a mailing list regular.
I've been happy with the 3com 905-series (xl) cards in the past, but had some problems with watchdog timeouts under recent 6.x release of FreeBSD with otherwise good hardware (no connection problems, just daily log spam).
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luma
Premium
join:2004-08-17
Ottawa, ON | Thanks Cabal,
Appreciate the info!
I think I am going to go for the intel a lot of folks seem to really like them.
Luma |
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dot_null
Premium
join:2004-06-28
Kennesaw, GA
 ·Callcentric
·Comcast
·VoiceStick
 ·AT&T Southeast
| reply to luma
I have a couple of cheapie 100Mbps cards in my pfSense box. I believe one is a Netgear NIC and another is a Motorola with an intel chipset (?).
Can't remember for sure because I deployed it around 2 years ago and haven't opened the case in probably a year. 
Here are what my system logs ID the NICs as:
ADMtek AN985 10/100BaseTX
NatSemi DP8381[56] 10/100BaseTX |
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deblin
Dark Side of the Moon
Premium,MVM
join:2001-09-01
Middletown, DE
| reply to luma
Oh, I'd also recommend against rl cards, if you don't go with em or dc.
According to the rl man page, that means avoiding these cards:
quote:
o Accton ``Cheetah'' EN1207D (MPX 5030/5038; RealTek 8139 clone)
o Allied Telesyn AT2550
o Allied Telesyn AT2500TX
o Belkin F5D5000
o BUFFALO (Melco INC.) LPC-CB-CLX (CardBus)
o Compaq HNE-300
o CompUSA no-name 10/100 PCI Ethernet NIC
o Corega FEther CB-TXD
o Corega FEtherII CB-TXD
o D-Link DFE-528TX
o D-Link DFE-530TX+
o D-Link DFE-538TX
o D-Link DFE-690TXD
o Edimax EP-4103DL CardBus
o Encore ENL832-TX 10/100 M PCI
o Farallon NetLINE 10/100 PCI
o Genius GF100TXR
o GigaFast Ethernet EE100-AXP
o KTX-9130TX 10/100 Fast Ethernet
o LevelOne FPC-0106TX
o Longshine LCS-8038TX-R
o NDC Communications NE100TX-E
o Netronix Inc. EA-1210 NetEther 10/100
o Nortel Networks 10/100BaseTX
o OvisLink LEF-8129TX
o OvisLink LEF-8139TX
o Peppercon AG ROL-F
o Planex FNW-3800-TX
o SMC EZ Card 10/100 PCI 1211-TX
o SOHO (PRAGMATIC) UE-1211C
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Aidens Daddy
join:2006-01-30
Tampa, FL | reply to luma
I use Intel, 3com 905's and I think I have an Netgear FA311 in there. |
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BosstonesOwn
join:2002-12-15
Everett, MA
clubs:
·Comcast
·Comcast Formerly ..
| reply to luma
I used old rev netgear fa311's I have a total of 2 lan adapters that one incoming is my comcast cable the other is out to my switch.
With 4 wireless cards each connected to my neighbors (1 t-1 2 cable , 1 sprint evdo card) and even with powerboost and a download accelerator I never hit the full 100 mbit speeds of the nic's.
Id go 100 mbit to keep down costs.
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sporkme
drop the crantini and move it, sister
Premium,MVM
join:2000-07-01
Morristown, NJ
·Optimum Online
| reply to luma
said by luma  :I think I am going to go for the intel a lot of folks seem to really like them. The fxps are, and as long as I've been using FBSD (2.1.6), have been rock-solid. Agreed that that rls are 'teh suck'. The other cheapies are good for an application like this, but under real load the hardware is really lacking.
There's some very interesting reading in many of the manpages for the cheap-o chipsets. |
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