Network Cards Supported by Firewalla Crystal

Firewalla Crystal runs on your own hardware, so it needs to recognize the network ports (NICs) in your machine. This page lists which network cards work with Crystal image 2.1008 (Linux kernel 7.0.14). For the best experience, we recommend hardware with Intel network cards.

• Verified: Firewalla has installed Crystal on this hardware and confirmed it works.
• Supported: Crystal includes the driver, and the card should work, but Firewalla has not tested it in-house.
• Limited: The card is detected, but some features or speeds may not work reliably.
• Not supported: The card will not work with the current Crystal image.

To find your network card, look up the LAN chip on your product page or manual, run "lspci | grep -i ethernet" (or "lsusb" for USB adapters) from any Linux live USB, or open Device Manager > Network adapters on Windows. You need the chip name (for example, "Intel I226-V"), not the brand of the computer.

Physical network cards

Verified

• Intel I225-V
• Intel I225-LM
• Intel I226-V
• Intel I211
• Intel 82580
• Intel X520 (third-party SFP+ modules work)
• Intel X710 (Intel-compatible SFP+ modules only, see below)
• Realtek RTL8111, RTL8168
• Aquantia / Marvell AQC113

Supported

• Intel I225 and I226, other models
• Intel I210
• Intel I217, I218, I219
• Intel 82574, 82576, I350
• Intel X540, X550, X552, X553
• Intel XL710, XXV710 (Intel-compatible SFP+ modules only, see below)
• Intel 8255x
• Realtek RTL8139
• Aquantia / Marvell AQC107, AQC108, AQC111
• Marvell Yukon 88E80xx
• Broadcom NetXtreme BCM57xx (BCM5719, BCM5720 and similar, common in Dell / HP servers)
• Broadcom NetXtreme-C / NetXtreme-E (BCM573xx, BCM574xx)
• Mellanox / NVIDIA ConnectX-3, ConnectX-4 and later
• Solarflare SFC9xxx, AMD Pensando
• QLogic QLE82xx
• Emulex, Cisco VIC, Huawei, Wangxun, Microchip LAN743x, Tehuti
• Qualcomm Atheros / Killer, NVIDIA nForce, JMicron, VIA

Limited

• Realtek RTL8125, RTL8126, RTL8127: works, but the link may be unstable or drop at higher speeds
• Intel E810: runs in a reduced "safe mode" with lower performance
• Chelsio T4, T5, T6: works only if the card's own firmware is already compatible

Not supported 

• Broadcom NetXtreme II (BCM5706, BCM5708, BCM5709, BCM57710, BCM57810)
• Chelsio T3
• QLogic FastLinQ QL41xxx, QL45xxx
• Netronome Agilio
• Myricom 10G cards

Virtual machines and cloud

Verified

• Proxmox VE / KVM / QEMU, with the VirtIO network adapter
• VMware ESXi, with the VMXNET3 or E1000 / E1000E network adapter

Supported

• Microsoft Hyper-V, with the synthetic Network Adapter
• Xen, with the default (netfront) adapter
• AWS, Google Cloud, Azure, with the instance's default adapter
• PCIe passthrough of a physical card to the VM also works, as long as that card is supported above.

USB network adapters

USB adapters are fine for testing, but we recommend built-in or PCIe network ports for daily use. Wi-Fi adapters cannot be used as WAN or LAN ports.

Supported

• ASIX AX88179, AX88772
• Aquantia AQC111U
• Microchip LAN78xx, SMSC LAN95xx
• Realtek RTL8152, RTL8153
• Generic USB Ethernet (CDC), Android / iPhone USB tethering
• Thunderbolt networking

Limited

• Realtek RTL8156: usually works, the link may be less stable

SFP+ modules

Some Intel 10G cards only accept Intel-approved SFP+ modules. With a third-party module, the port may stay down.

• Intel X520: third-party modules are supported.
• Intel X710 / XL710 / XXV710: the card itself refuses third-party modules. Use an Intel-compatible module.
• Intel E810, Mellanox, Broadcom, Chelsio and Solarflare cards generally accept third-party modules.
• OEM cards (Dell, HP, Lenovo branded Intel cards) may require modules from the same vendor.

If your network card is not listed, contact Firewalla support with the output of "lspci -nn | grep -i ethernet" (or the chip name from your product page) and we will check it for you.