Look for something built on an Intel i225 or i226, there should be a 4 port model
this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2023
12 points (92.9% liked)
Selfhosted
39980 readers
604 users here now
A place to share alternatives to popular online services that can be self-hosted without giving up privacy or locking you into a service you don't control.
Rules:
-
Be civil: we're here to support and learn from one another. Insults won't be tolerated. Flame wars are frowned upon.
-
No spam posting.
-
Posts have to be centered around self-hosting. There are other communities for discussing hardware or home computing. If it's not obvious why your post topic revolves around selfhosting, please include details to make it clear.
-
Don't duplicate the full text of your blog or github here. Just post the link for folks to click.
-
Submission headline should match the article title (don’t cherry-pick information from the title to fit your agenda).
-
No trolling.
Resources:
- selfh.st Newsletter and index of selfhosted software and apps
- awesome-selfhosted software
- awesome-sysadmin resources
- Self-Hosted Podcast from Jupiter Broadcasting
Any issues on the community? Report it using the report flag.
Questions? DM the mods!
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Realtek NICs are known to be kinda incompatible with PFSense (some features won't work). But supposedly they work just fine with OPNSense. Maybe the NIC is just faulty? I haven't personally used OPNSense, so I can't really say for sure.
But if your friend wants to run PFSense, he needs an Intel NIC, period. I'd argue that most people probably don't need 4 ports, they just need to add a decent 2.5G switch if they want more ports. But your friend might know better if he has a specific use case that requires a 4 port NIC.
Realtek NICs just never seem to work well with any Unix-like variants. I've never had good luck with them in Linux, which has far better/wider hardware support than FreeBSD does.
He wants to try to use opnsense due to the problems with netgate.
Fair. I've been considering OPNSense myself, but I bought an Intel NIC just so that I know I have the option of using either. Also, the nerds here generally agree that they're higher quality than Realtek.
Realtek are a problem with FreeBSD in general, so Opnsense has issues with them as well.
Got any examples of what the problems are? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to argue.
I did quite a bit of research before buying one of those generic Chinese N95 router boxes recently, and I ultimately settled on an Intel NIC just to have options (I want to try both OPNSense and PFSense). But all the reviews I found said that the options with Realtek NICs had problems with PFSense (bandwidth and VLANs not working) but functioned perfectly fine with OPNSense.
Maybe there are some poor quality Realtek NICs that should be avoided, but others are fine? Might be helpful to document that so the community is aware....
Anecdotal, but I was guiding a friend through setting OS up and it just wouldn't happen with an RTL8169. Swapped in an Intel, away it went. So that's a sample set of 1, take it for what it's worth. But realtek have been a pain in my ass for decades, it really didn't surprise me.
If you're using any FreeBSD-based OS you should manually compile the realtek-re-kmod port. Make sure your kernel source is in sync with what you're running.
On a router, I'd rather spend $40 on a NIC that doesn't pile up every kernel update. In the early days of Linux, I'd always keep a NE2000 in servers as a backdoor network connection for any system that had a compiled driver for a faster card.
Yeah it's a pain in the arse. I 100% recommend Broadcom or Intel NICs for a router. I have a fileserver which has several Intel NICs and a single Realtek one and the latter is a PITA.
Search "i225 4 port nic" on ebay.
Thanks for the suggestion. I found a 2 port nic that should work, but I will keep looking for a 4 port