Looking for a >USB3.0 to RJ45< or >M.2 PCIe x4 to RJ45< adaptor with 5gbase-t

[Layer8]

Hey everbody,

i am planing to replace my PC Engines APU with an older Intel NUC 5i5. The CPU of this NUC seems to be strong enough for my needs, but a single 1gb NIC is defenetly not enough.

Id like to add some more NICs through adaptors based on USB3.0 or (if there is such a solution) M.2 PCIe 2.0 x4. Would also be nice to find adaptors, which support hardware offload (tcp error correction, vlan tagging for more than one vid, maybe jumbo frames, etc..).

Note: I still have a x570 mainboard with an Aquantia 10gbit chip onboard. But the windows driver only allows me to change the vlan settings from "untagged" to "tagged with one vlan id". Im not sure, if this is only a limitation based on complicated driver/vlan handlings under windows or if there is realy no hardware support for more extensive vlan tagging, even if its used under freebsd or linux.

I found some USB based adaptors with Marvell/​Aquantia AQtion AQC111U chipset, which can handle 5gb-connections. But im not sure if they support full vlan capabilities and also i dont know if these chip is supported under FreeBSD / opnsense? Maybe one knows such an adapter with intel or rtl chipsets?

Mayby a other solution would be to use something like a DELOCK 62584 M.2->PCIe x4 adapter and DELOCK 85768 PCIe x4 expansion cable. Is there anybody who did such things? Might there be latency problems or crosstalk?

Is anybody out there who can give me some general tipps fo this request?

Thanks

[bartjsmit]

I use ESXi on a gen7 i3 NUC with the VMware fling: https://flings.vmware.com/usb-network-native-driver-for-esxi

Works a treat with TP-Link UE300 adapters

OPNsense on a VM, obviously

Bart...

[Layer8]

Thanks for reply.

Already thought about this, but the thing is, i dont want to use my firewall on a Hypervisor. And compatibility to ESXi dosnt mean that its compatible to freebsd/*sense, because ESXi is not based on freebsd, nor linux.

[bartjsmit]

And compatibility to ESXi dosnt mean that its compatible to freebsd/*sense, because ESXi is not based on freebsd, nor linux.

FreeBSD is a fully supported guest OS under ESXi: https://www.vmware.com/resources/compatibility/search.php

OPNsense doesn't see the USB adapter, it sees the vmxnet adapter.

You also get snapshots and hardware changes without having to reinstall

Bart...

[Layer8]

I know, but i still dont want to run my firewall in a VM. Thats a question of availability.