What do you mean by safe? if you want a good way of blocking sites, you can try squidguard, ipblock or countryblock. Snort is also a good thing but I found it "complicated".

If you're using 2.0, and you should be, then it's based on FreeBSD 8.1 so the hardware list is here. Oh and FreeBSD is not Linux!  ;) Steve

Although I'm not using one of these myself a mate of mine has one. I'm impressed with how quiet it is. You could run it anywhere no problem. Also it has a load of great features you usually only find on expensive 'server' grade hardware. Steve

I built a i5 Sandy Bridge pfSense a couple of weeks back. Runs well.. except for the processor running hot due to poor air ventilation in my mini-ITX thermaltake enclosure.

Seems to me you could connect the two offices together with an ISP using Metro Ethernet, that is a layer two connection , and you could make it a /30 point to point. And then keep what you got that would keep the latency low for your VoIP.

I think the NSA 3500 use also a MIPS CPU (IMHO a quad MIPS?!)

@Jason: There really isn't any such thing as a "software NIC". I was referring to the type of cards such as the Realtek NICs vs the Intel's that people recommend. That board has a 82579V which is connected via PCI-e x1. I thought so, but I wasn't sure.  Where did you find the info? I don't believe it's supported by pfSense at this time. It is supported by 2.0-RC3.  Not sure about previous versions, as that's all I've loaded on it.

Either get a VLAN-capable switch or go get an Intel Quad PT on eBay.

Ok thanks for the responses. I'll just buy a decent one that's supported.

@anoopch: A wifi PCI/PCI-E card, 150Mbps at-least; 300Mbps desired; There is no support yet for 802.11n features (including speeds 150Mbps or more) in FreeBSD/pfSense. @anoopch: Are there any limitations for number of simultaneous wireless/WiFi connections? ie.) the Number of clients connected at any given time.. Is there a Max or what? None I know of other than the more active users the less bandwidth each gets. @anoopch: Can i use MAC based IP allocation for them? I have DHCP configured to assign a fixed IP address to most of my WiFi clients based on the client's MAC address.

Thanks for the hint @iMacG3 I tried again and enabled powerD first, than ran sysctl -a | grep dev.cpu. Output: dev.cpu.0.%desc: ACPI CPU dev.cpu.0.%driver: cpu dev.cpu.0.%location: handle=\_PR_.P001 dev.cpu.0.%pnpinfo: _HID=none _UID=0 dev.cpu.0.%parent: acpi0 dev.cpu.0.freq: 100 dev.cpu.0.freq_levels: 1600/4940 1400/4322 1280/3347 1120/2928 960/2510 800/1522 700/1331 600/1141 500/951 400/761 300/570 200/380 100/190 dev.cpu.0.cx_supported: C1/100 dev.cpu.0.cx_lowest: C1 dev.cpu.0.cx_usage: 100.00% last 186us dev.cpu.1.%desc: ACPI CPU dev.cpu.1.%driver: cpu dev.cpu.1.%location: handle=\_PR_.P002 dev.cpu.1.%pnpinfo: _HID=none _UID=0 dev.cpu.1.%parent: acpi0 dev.cpu.1.cx_supported: C1/100 dev.cpu.1.cx_lowest: C1 dev.cpu.1.cx_usage: 100.00% last 138us dev.cpufreq.0.%driver: cpufreq dev.cpufreq.0.%parent: cpu0 I guess the cpu is already running at it's lowest state of 100 MHz (with about 0.3 to 0.5 Watt savings as before). Without powerD the frequency was shown as 1600. Maybe it really is the integrated GPU that consumes more power with FreeBSD… In the Web interface it showed this time btw: "CPU Type AMD E-350 Processor Current: 500 MHz, Max: 1600 MHz" Maybe a bit buggy. ;)

@TheBlast: A good book about VLAN's will do tghe job. From memory the wikipedia article on VLAN is pretty good source.  Maybe you won't need a book after reading that.

Indesman: Check out this thread http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,39595.0.html To other people searching for monitoring CPU temp on Atom boards and having similar issues as presented in this topic - click the above link too.

bummer. oh well, thanks for the reply.

He don't have free ethernet ports no  tengo mas puertos ethernet disponibles por eso estoy usando el usb I think is easy, just add other eth adapter or if you dont have any free slot, get some cheap manged switch and use VLANs

@jahonix: Every time I used a Netgear device in the past I ran into troubles (failing HW, feature not working right, fan blown, too hot, too loud, IIRC) I use HPs 1710, 1810 or whatever they call them now or Cisco/Linksys for managed switches and cheap TrendNet or TP-Link unmanaged switches. No issues so far. (I even use a TrendNet Green GBit switch to connect my VM host machines to the disk array, but don't tell!  8) That's interesting, I've never had an issue with small Netgear switches.  I've never used their rackmount units though, I stick to Dell (3xxxP and 62xx switches) in that area. Actually, I take that back.  i had one GS108T that rebooted every time you touched it.  That turned out to be a defective AC adapter though.  Once I replaced it the switch was fine.

I have best results with these server grade assemblies: SuperMicro I think they are discontinued but can be easily found on eBay an such sites. Together with an SSD this makes a quite yet powerful machine.

In that case just start off with whatever hardware you have to hand and see how it goes. Steve

TP-Link TL-WN321G is supported in pfSense 1.2.3 and later. Tenda W311U is supported in pfSense 2.0 RC3 and later snapshot builds. Both are USB wireless NICs capable of acting as Access Points. I've had good results from both of them in my two floor house. Where I live both of these are available for under US$15 at current exchange ranges. Considering the cost of these supported devices its probably not worth your while attempting to get the Realtek devices working.

It's definitely com5. Prolific are the usb-serial manufacturer. If your image has not installed correctly on the card then you won't see anything at 9600. The default serial speed for the Alix BIOS is 38,400. Try setting putty to 38,400. You can change the bios serial speed to 9600 to match the output from pfSense. Steve