Mainboard as PfSense/OpenVPN server

Creators & Developers Mainboard
1

Hi !

I’ve recently upgrade my framework and was thinking about using the old board as a PfSense/OpenVPN Server.

I was very excited by the fact that I could add 2 NIC to the mainboard but slightly disappointed to see that the expansion card was using the RTL8156 chip.

First I wanted to know if others have tried using it in this way and if they ran into any issues with it.
Second, maybe someone knows about the Framework team working on another Ethernet Expansion card (tho I doubt it) or if someone has created an open source NIC expansion card using another chipset ?

Cheers !

2

I use two of the mainboards as ‘servers’ and use the RTL8156 ethernet expansion cards without any issues. One is running proxmox, and the other NixOS. Since BSD doesn’t like the chip, you could virtualize it, but BSD with PfSense/OpenVPN prefers server class chipsets for networking, and you might have issues.

1 Like
3

Thanks for the input !
I’ll give it a try nonetheless, if I get any weirdness then I’ll use the board for something else.

Cheers !