Hardware recommendations

Mutant · Aug 16, 2017

Good morning all, I am in the process of starting a new project using pfsense but every thread i read on there site lead to the same response. "Why not use a separate wifi device". So as it is based on FreeBSD I thought you guys would be able to give me a straight answer.

I know atheros is the go to choice for all things wifi with FreeBSD. Can someone recommend a card that supports 802.11 a/b/g/n that works well with FreeBSD? Having an operational range of at least 600Mbps would be a massive advantage.

I'm not fussed if it is a mini pcie card or pcie x1 as I should be able to get a mini pcie to pcie x1 adapter if I need to.

With so many atheros cards out there it is hard to know which is better.

Thanks in advance for your help.

jb_fvwm2 · Aug 17, 2017

See the thread, " Which brand of wireless USB adapter..." in the Peripheral Hardware subforum, maybe. [ post 12 ... ]

shepper · Aug 18, 2017

Is this a commercial grade project or a home-use experiment?

I'm not sure that any ath(4), ral(4) or any of the intel based chips will reach 600Mbps in FreeBSD at this time. This may be the reason that you are getting recommendations for a dedicated Access Point. Most of the devices that came up in a web search with 600Mbps wireless Access point were commercial grade and priced accordingly.

This Netis device is significantly cheaper and would just subnet off an RJ-45.

Mutant · Aug 18, 2017

Its primary use will be home use.

After looking at the supported devices list I came across the Intel AC-7265 https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=iwm&sektion=4&manpath=freebsd-release-ports .

I do however have one question regardless of if I go with USB or a PCI Express card, are the driver packages something I will have to download and install separate?

If so would someone be able to give me a pointer on how as my knowledge of doing things via ssh is somewhat limited.

Phishfry · Aug 19, 2017

Mutant said:
Having an operational range of at least 600Mbps would be a massive advantage.

I don't see where you got 600 megabit/sec. The most I have ever seen for 802.11n is 3x MIMO= 450 megabit/sec

I have an APU3 which I am using as an FreeBSD Wireless Access Point.
The speed I am seeing is dramatically less. The reasons using FreeBSD for an AccessPoint is not speed.

Code:

dell@E6420:~ % iperf -mc 192.168.100.1
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to 192.168.100.1, TCP port 5001
TCP window size: 32.8 KByte (default)
------------------------------------------------------------
[  3] local 192.168.100.23 port 25563 connected with 192.168.100.1 port 5001
[ ID] Interval       Transfer     Bandwidth
[  3]  0.0-10.0 sec  40.6 MBytes  33.9 Mbits/sec
[  3] MSS size 1460 bytes (MTU 1500 bytes, ethernet)
ro

Yea so 34 Mbits/Sec real world. So the advice on the forum is correct. I have other reasons I use a FreeBSD AP.

I am using an Ubiquity SR71e module.

Mutant · Aug 19, 2017

The figure of 600Mbps is just a optimal speed pure because what I currently have has the specs reporting an operational of up to 600. Real word speed on the other hand yes you are correct. but on the other hand I dont want to go through the headache of doing this only to find the speed I am able to get is less than what I currently get if you get what Im saying.

shepper · Aug 19, 2017

Mutant said:
I do however have one question regardless of if I go with USB or a PCI Express card, are the driver packages something I will have to download and install separate?

The "drivers" are in the kernel, Some companies do not allow the redistribution of firmware so you may end up downloading and installing said firmware or agreeing to license terms. The needed firmware is usually described in the man pages. See rtwn(4).

There are several ways to get firmware into your project including sftp, wget/curl, mounting/cp from a usb thumb drive or building the projects flash image (loopback) with the firmware.

Mutant · Aug 19, 2017

Thanks very much for everyone's help and feedback, I definitely came to the right place to ask these question. If I have any issues ill be sure to ask nicely.

sko · Aug 22, 2017

If you are happy with a maximum of ~600Mbit/s (which most consumer client hardware won't be able to achieve anyways...) and therefore don't necessarily need ac capabilities, why not use a proper access point? These non-ac APs are very cheap nowadays - for home use you can get used professional/enterprise gear for an incredibly low budget.
E.g. I'm using a cisco aironet AIR-AP1142N - signal strenght and reception quality is far better than any consumer-grade PCIe card, let alone any USB dongle could achieve. In terms of signal strength and range it even easily outperforms the Linksys LAPAC1750Pro APs we use at my workplace.
These APs are selling for <40$ and if you have access to cisco firmware downloads you can buy an AIR-LAP (the "light" version intended for use with a centralized controller) for less than half of that and reflash it with the standalone firmware (this is what I did).

The AP is connected to my FreeBSD gateway via 3 different VLAN - one for management, one for "untrusted" devices (phones) and one equal to my LAN for trusted devices (e.g. my laptop). This setup makes it quite easy to develop a clean PF ruleset as you can apply rules on whole networks (VLANs/zones) and not have to clutter your ruleset with per-host/ip rules.