Quick question about AES-NI...

Started by JustinG, May 04, 2017, 06:23:56 AM

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May 04, 2017, 06:23:56 AM Last Edit: May 04, 2017, 06:33:37 AM by JustinG
Hello all,

Recently the pFsense project released that they will force you to have a CPU that supports AES-NI in the future in order to continue receiving updates from version 2.5 and on. https://www.netgate.com/blog/pfsense-2-5-and-aes-ni.html

This move is going to basically make my brand new firewall useless (mind you, it has more power than a firewall will ever need, and I don't expect gigabits of throughput on my VPN, 250 Mbps is more than enough). I started googling for alternatives to pFsense and found this project! It looks great and I'm excited to try it out. My only concern is that OPNSense will follow in their footsteps, and pull the same requirement of AES-NI. I don't want to have to go through an entire migration process only to have to do it once more.

TL;DR Any time in the foreseeable future, is it likely that OPNSense will force users to have AES-NI support on their CPUs, or would it be unlikely that such a requirement would be forced on the project's users?

-- EDIT --

My apologies, this has been answered already, I don't know how I missed the post. Here is the link:

https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=5097.0;topicseen

Hi Justin,

No, there are no plans to restrict capable hardwareon the amd64 (x64_64) architecture. The other thread gives further insight. All questions are welcome. :)


Cheers,
Franco