I’ve got a slew of SFF PC’s that are single NIC only, I’d like to migrate my PFsense firewall from my VM host so that I don’t have both living on the same box, mainly because I’ve had a few instances of Proxmox upgrades messing with my WAN link, and I don’t really love the idea of potentially losing my entire network if proxmox dies.
That being said, I’ve seen a ton of SFF m.2 2280 to Ethernet adapters being thrown around, and they’re all over Amazon, but, I’m concerned from a reliability/security perspective.
Does anyone here have direct experience with these adapters? Are they safe? Are there any reliable brands?
Thanks in advance!
If it has the Intel i225v chipset according to this post it should work:
Be aware though I had some weird issues with that chipset and Verizon FiOS.
1 Like
Are you going to be satisfied with just two ethernet ports? I know I wouldn’t be. I really need four: two WAN links (I have redundant WAN connections, fiber and 5G), the LAN connection and one as a way to get into pfSense box when I mess things up. Leaving aside the dual WAN issue, I like having an extra NIC that isn’t trunked/sits on its own VLAN/subnet for when things go sideways. I find it makes it easier to get emergency access to the GUI, by just plugging my laptop directly into that port.
1 Like
I’d echo @Louie1961 having the capability to use the LAN to access the pfsense box is handy and then running the remaining ports as vlans works well. You might want to consider a Lenovo 1 litre usff, some allow a low profile quad NIC card to be installed. You ought to be able to get something of ebay.
1 Like
BTW, for not much more money than you might spend on a M.2 NIC, you can get something like this Sophos XG125 Rev 3 device ($70 on ebay, its not mine). It has an Intel Atom C3508 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, eight Intel NICs, and it should load up pfSense just fine
1 Like
Appreciate the feedback, I’m happy with a single WAN and two NICs, to be fair, it has worked fine for years and keeps costs down. My main priority is just moving pfSense off my main VM host so Proxmox updates don’t break my network, which has happened a few times, albeit, not super frequently. That Sophos box looks interesting though, so I might look into it.
It’s also worth noting that I do have a licensed sg-2100-s max sitting next to me on the desk, It just irks me that it really doesn’t give me my full 1gig throughput otherwise I’d be using that instead, might need to find another use for it though so it doesn’t go to waste lol
I’d go with i226 based cards, I have a bunch of the a+e slot cards in my lab and they work fine. The Windows drivers can be a bit odd, but no problems with Linux or OPNsense.
You said small form factor, that should have a PCIe slot or two. If it is tiny, mini, micro then may or may not have a pcie slot. Quad port low profile Intel i350 cards are cheap (around $40) and should fit any SFF chassis.
I would also recommend (as above) having a port to direct connect, on my stuff that is often the Realtek NIC. I set up DHCP server on that port so simple to plug in and figure out what kind of mistake I made to bring the system down. Been there and done that. You could risk a USB interface for this, I’m told the Realtek based interfaces are pretty decent these days, and emergency only would be good enough.
[edit] I’m seeing a few dual port i226 m.2 cards, and a B/M slot should normally have enough bandwidth for at least 2 ports, might be worth a try.
1 Like
Well I have a DIY 10gbe pfSense box that I built that I could sell you if interested. It is based on a ASRock Industrial IMB-V2000M motherboard (AMD V2718 CPU 8 core/16 threads, 15 watt TDP). But the 10gbe NIC is SFP+ not ethernet. You could easily change that out for a 1gbe or 2.5gbe NIC depending on what suits you. PM me if you are interested. Its in a 4 liter HTPC case.
1 Like
I’ve never cared about looks…
Always setup most of mine using an entry level used business mini tower pc (intel chipset) with a dual port 1G intel pcie server nic you can pick up for under 15 bucks on ebay
Leaves the onboard nic for management access
1 Like
Hey All, Thanks for the assistance and recommendations, I ended up buying this adapter, and so far it’s working great. As an update, the architecture I’m landing on is actually similar to what I already run, but I’m decoupling my main Proxmox core services from the firewall, I’m still going to use Proxmox as an underlay for the new VM, however it’s going to live on a separate node altogether, main reason for this is so that I can rebuild my out of band setup, and build the new host around firm stability. To accomplish this, I’m going to use the new NIC for my LAN pipe, and primary ethernet 1gb NIC for WAN, as a I have a gig fiber circuit anyways, from there, I’ll use OVS to build out the vlans that are required to allow them to pass across the Proxmox host. Since the WAN link lands on the consumer router that ATT provides, I’ll pass my WAN IP through directly to the PFsense Guest VM, and statically assign a backend gateway to the proxmox host in the native IP range living on ATT, then I’ll dual home my main system so that even if the PFsense VM were to die completely, I’ll have a backlink into the Proxmox host in the native ATT IP range in order to access/troubleshoot.
Thanks again, hope this topic helps others in the future with their Micro setups.
1 Like