Setup in anger…
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Hello All,
I have been an avid follower of this forum for a number of months now….
Been tinkering at home with pfSense with the intention to introduce it at work.
I was wondering if people could explaine the type of enviroment (both hardware and software) that they use pfSense in?Reason being I am a little concerned about how I go about fitting it into my enterprise network both from a simple "fitting it in the rack" perspective and from a more detailed network level/business continuity..
I didn't want to put it into the hardware secton as I am more concerned about high level hardware/enviroment than the technical details of which network card etc.
Been looking around for rack mount hardware and it seems to be very hard to obtain custom built hardware in the UK that is affordable and my use of old tower pcs at home is not really transferable to the business enviroment - for example I want an easily installed/replicated & is rackmountable solution preferably with a Warranty with a understanding supplier....
Look forward to an informative Discussion.
Kind Regards
G
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Thousands of people are running pfSense in production using a wide variety of server hardware. Dell and Supermicro both have rackmount gear which will serve your purpose just fine.
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It might be easier if you just listed the available business class servers you use, or have available to you in the UK. I'm sure any of them will work, though some might be better than others.
If your business uses all HP or all Dell, then get one of those. I don't see why you would need to go outside the box for this.
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This thread might interest you: http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,7668.0.html
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I second the Supermicro option given by submicron. We use some 1U supermicro atom 330 boxes and they make excellent firewalls. They're rackable, short (about the depth of a PIX 515, sonicwall, etc), low power, and quiet, too.
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This thread might interest you: http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,7668.0.html
Excellent.
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It might be easier if you just listed the available business class servers you use, or have available to you in the UK. I'm sure any of them will work, though some might be better than others.
If your business uses all HP or all Dell, then get one of those. I don't see why you would need to go outside the box for this.
@ submicron also.
I looked at dell and the cheapest option I can find is £710+vat for one Rack mounted appliance with 2 embeded Broadcom Nics and 1 x Intel.
Dont know if the broadcom cards would work with pf but even if they do, its a lot of money for somthing that will consume almost no cpu etc.
I could go down the higher spec desktop and stick it on a shelf but I was hoping to make it nice and easy with Rack mount.
Will look into submic appliances that was mentioned but I dont really want to go for home made option.
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There should be some UK companies that make rackmount servers using Supermicro boards. That would be my first choice since they tend to integrate dual Intel NIC's.
A quick Google search brought these guys up on the first page:
http://www.sentralsystems.com/superintel.htmlI have no idea how good they are. But given the choice between a Dell or a Supermicro with Intel, I'd choose the latter.