Opnsense on zimaboard?

asdffdsa · May 17, 2025, 5:58pm

hello, thanks, wanting to know about running opnsense on a zimaboard and any real word feedback?

i know that opnsense is very picky about the network chipset.
my current router is a huge, power hungry used desktop pc with an add-on pci network card using intel chipset with dual jacks.
runs great for the last fours years, but now, i need to downsize in terms of physical space and power usage.

also, i am having a hard time about what is the exact network chipset used in the zimaboard1?

i found How To Install And Configure FreeNAS With ZimaBoard SBC

given that opnsense is based on freebsd, i would like to believe that opnsense would work as well?
but no mention of the exact network chipset?

Gjchester · May 18, 2025, 8:16pm

I have had OpnSense running on my ZimaBoard 1 for a long time, with no issues. ZB1 has a ReakTek chipset.

However I use a 4port Intel PCIe NIC Card. I did use it initially with the onboard NICS and at the time updated the drivers, there used to be a plug in to use the “official” Realtek drivers but they may have been added to the official OPNSense release by now..

I don’t use Zen Armour.

Bear in mind the more you turn on on OpnSense the more load on the board…

ZimaBoard 2 is coming with Intel 2.5GB/S nics which should be better.