# Low profile NICs



## xy16644 (Aug 3, 2009)

I am wanting to add two low profile PCI network cards to my FreeBSD server to use with pf.

Can anyone recommend a good card?

I've been looking at:

Intel PRO/1000GT

and

Realtek RTL8139D 

Haven't read good things about the Realtek card. Intel card is more expensive but I guess you get what you pay for. I just want it to work with FreeBSD 7.2 and maybe later on OpenBSD 4.5 too.

Thanks!


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## SirDice (Aug 3, 2009)

Realtek is cheap and it's performance is pretty much crap :e

Also note that the Realtek card is 100Mbit and the Intel a 1000Mbit.


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## xy16644 (Aug 3, 2009)

Not *too* worried about the performance to be honest. As long as it can handle 2 megabit per second I am happy!

I was more concerned about it working with FreeBSD.

The Realtek card is about Â£3 or Â£4 but the Intel is Â£17.

And I need two...


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## DutchDaemon (Aug 3, 2009)

Stay away from Realtek if at all possible. The card is ugly, the chipset is ugly, and the driver is ugly  There've been eternal BUGS sections in rl(4) and re(4).

Moreover, the Intel driver (em(4)) was written by Intel itself, so it has 'corp intel' behind it (fwiw).


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## xy16644 (Aug 3, 2009)

I think I am gonna skip the cheap Realtek cards!!

The Intel cards will be worth the extra money.


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## aragon (Aug 3, 2009)

For the few extra bucks, the Intel is probably worth it, even if just in piece of mind.


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## xy16644 (Aug 3, 2009)

Anyone heard of these dual or quad port NICs or used one:

http://www.soekris.com/lan16x1.htm

They say they work with Free/OpenBSD.

â‚¬53 for the dual port (only this one comes in low profile)

â‚¬77 for the quad port


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## aragon (Aug 3, 2009)

I use their quad card in my Net5501 running FreeBSD 8.0.  Been flawless for me, but it's just my home router/switch.


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## xy16644 (Aug 3, 2009)

I really like the fact that you can cram so many ports into one slot. My machine only accepts low profile though so I can only go for the dual port.

I see they also sell "security accelerators":

http://www.soekris.com/vpn1401.htm

Are these the same as cryptographic accelerators that can be used in OpenBSD?


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## aragon (Aug 3, 2009)

Yes.  They accelerate OpenSSL and IPSEC.  Pretty sure they work in FreeBSD too.  The Net5501 has an onboard AES accelerator that is supported in FreeBSD 8.0:


```
Geode LX: Soekris net5501 comBIOS ver. 1.33 20070103 Copyright (C) 2000-2007
glxsb0: <AMD Geode LX Security Block (AES-128-CBC, RNG)> mem 0xa0000000-0xa0003fff irq 10 at device 1.2 on pci0
```


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## xy16644 (Aug 3, 2009)

Does this mean everytime someone browses my SSL enabled web site and/or uses an IPSec VPN connection to my machine, and I have one of these cards installed, all the number crunching encryption stuff gets done by the cryptographic accelerators? Does it make a big difference to performance?

According to their website it works with FreeBSD too.


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## aragon (Aug 3, 2009)

Yes, in both of those instances the hardware engine should handle the encryption.

It makes a big difference on Soekris hardware.  On a PC type system, not really... or at least not those cards.  A modern Core 2 Duo or faster CPU should be able to do encryption much faster than these particular accelerators.  In a Soekris you only have a humble 500 MHz Pentium class CPU, so the accelerator helps a lot if you're doing a lot of encryption.


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## xy16644 (Aug 4, 2009)

So it would be a waste of time installing one of those cards on a Pentium 4 HT 2.8Ghz?


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## aragon (Aug 4, 2009)

Probably.


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## phoenix (Aug 4, 2009)

Intel makes 2-port and 4-port low-profile gigabit NICs.  As well as normal-height 2-, 4-, and more port NICs.  

We use the 2-port and 4-port in our firewalls and diskless/terminal servers.  Work just beautifully in FreeBSD 6+ and Debian Linux 4+.


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## xy16644 (Aug 4, 2009)

The dual and quad port Intel cards seem to be a bit pricey.

I was looking at buying two of the following:

http://www.dabs.com/products/intel-...i-low-profile-564Y.html?refs=4294960491-50520http://www.dabs.com/products/intel-pro-1000gt-pci-single-port-desktop-adapter-rj45-to-intel-pro-1000gt-pci-low-profile-564Y.html?refs=4294960491-50520

The description:

Intel PRO/1000GT PCI Single Port Desktop Adapter RJ45 to Intel PRO/1000GT PCI Low Profile

I thought two of those for Â£35 was good value for money?


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