Hardware Compatibility¶
t1n1wall targets standard PC (amd64) hardware running FreeBSD 15. It is designed for general-purpose x86-64 hardware rather than proprietary appliance platforms.
Architecture¶
Current releases target amd64 (x86-64) only. 32-bit x86, ARM, and MIPS targets from earlier m0n0wall releases are not supported in t1n1wall.
General PC hardware¶
t1n1wall runs on any amd64-compatible hardware that FreeBSD 15 supports. Typical deployments use:
- Commodity mini-PC / small form factor hardware (e.g., Intel NUC class)
- Rack-mount 1U servers
- Embedded SBC boards with x86-64 CPUs
- Virtual machines (see Virtualisation below)
The minimum practical hardware is modest: a modern x86-64 CPU, 512 MB RAM, and a storage device of any kind that FreeBSD can boot from.
Network interface cards¶
t1n1wall relies on FreeBSD NIC drivers. Well-supported families:
| Driver | Hardware family | Notes |
|---|---|---|
em / igb |
Intel GbE (82540/82574/I350/I210/I211) | Excellent FreeBSD support; recommended |
bge / tg3 |
Broadcom GbE | Generally supported |
re |
Realtek GbE/2.5GbE | Supported; some models have quirks |
ix / ixl |
Intel 10GbE / 25GbE | Supported for higher throughput deployments |
vtnet |
VirtIO | For virtual machines (KVM, QEMU, Proxmox) |
vmx |
VMware VMXNET3 | For VMware deployments |
For 802.1Q VLAN support, Intel em/igb family NICs have the most reliable native tagging support. See VLANs for caveats on NICs without native 802.1Q support.
Multi-port NICs¶
Multi-port Intel cards (e.g., I350-T4, I210 dual-port) are commonly used to get WAN, LAN, and optional interfaces from a single card or a small number of slots.
Wireless¶
Wireless support depends on the driver for the installed card. Known compatible families:
- Atheros (
ath,ath_pci) — good support including older PCI cards - Ralink RT2x00/RT3x00 (
run, requiresrunfwfirmware) — USB adapters, support added FreeBSD 11
WPA_Supplicant support for wireless WAN (client mode) was added in the FreeBSD 11 release. See Wireless.
Not all wireless chipsets support all modes. Verify your specific card against FreeBSD 15 driver notes before deploying wireless-dependent configurations.
Embedded / SBC hardware¶
PC Engines APU2 / APU3¶
The PC Engines APU2 and APU3 boards are well-suited to t1n1wall deployment:
- amd64 (AMD GX-412TC or GX-412TC4) — supported
- Three Intel NIC ports (
igbdriver) - mSATA / M.2 SSD storage
- SD card via
sdhcikernel driver (added in FreeBSD 11)
Other x86-64 SBCs¶
Any x86-64 SBC that FreeBSD 15 supports and that has at least two network interfaces is a candidate. Verify storage boot support and NIC driver compatibility.
Virtualisation¶
t1n1wall can be deployed as a virtual machine. Supported hypervisors:
| Hypervisor | NIC driver | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| KVM / QEMU / Proxmox VE | vtnet (VirtIO) |
Full support; use VirtIO network adapters |
| VMware ESXi / Workstation | vmx (VMXNET3) |
Supported |
| VirtualBox | em (Intel E1000 emulation) |
Supported |
| Hyper-V | hn (Hyper-V network) |
Supported on FreeBSD 15 |
For virtual deployments, allocate at least two virtual NICs (WAN and LAN). Assign additional NICs for optional interfaces or DMZ segments.
AES-NI¶
Hardware AES acceleration (AES-NI) is supported and built into the kernel since the FreeBSD 12 release (previously it was a dynamically loaded module). AES-NI significantly improves IPsec and TLS throughput on hardware that supports it.
All Intel Core and AMD Ryzen CPUs since approximately 2012 include AES-NI. Verify support with grep AES /var/run/dmesg.boot on a running system.
Storage¶
t1n1wall boots from the installed image and requires no persistent writable storage for the OS — configuration is stored in config.xml. Any storage device that FreeBSD can boot from is suitable:
- SATA / M.2 SSD (recommended)
- USB flash drive
- SD card (on hardware with
sdhcisupport) - Virtual disk (in VM deployments)
The image size is small; an 8 GB device is more than sufficient.