A couple general questions

PixelsGC

I am currently looking to replace our old watchguard router that is going bad and I'm currently looking at the NetGate m1n1wall with PfSense.

Currently the Watchguard limits our speed to 10mb/s when we should be getting 40mb/s through. Will the Netgate aloow us to get the full speed?
also
This router is for a fraternity house and I was wondering how many users will be able to get on, the watchguard has 50 licenses right now but we would like a little more then that.

Thanks for the input,
Rick

XIII

for pfsense: 253 users per subnet/nic

speed depends on a number of factors, would it just be a basic pf install or would you use packages?

kpa

@XIII:

for pfsense: 253 users per subnet/nic

PfSense is not limited to /24 on a network, you can easily use more addresses for a network if you just set it up with a wider netmask.

For example 10.13.0.0/16 for LAN would give 65533 usable LAN addresses 10.13.0.2 to 10.13.255.254 if you reserve 10.13.0.1 for LAN interface.

Same applies to other firewalls as well, not just pfSense. What addresses you use on your own private networks is really up to you.

PixelsGC

I would just use the basic PFSense install on the router itself, just a simple setup and config.

jimp

You should be able to get ~85Mbit of normal throughput on the ALIX under ideal conditions. If you're just using it for firewall, nat, etc, that should be more than enough to handle your 40Mbit connection.

XIII

@kpa:

@XIII:

for pfsense: 253 users per subnet/nic

PfSense is not limited to /24 on a network, you can easily use more addresses for a network if you just set it up with a wider netmask.

For example 10.13.0.0/16 for LAN would give 65533 usable LAN addresses 10.13.0.2 to 10.13.255.254 if you reserve 10.13.0.1 for LAN interface.

Same applies to other firewalls as well, not just pfSense. What addresses you use on your own private networks is really up to you.

I meant a basic class c network supports 253 devices besides the pfsense box, you could get it to support up to 131,072 devices via /15 or if you really wanted to 134,217,728 devices via supernetting (/5). OP doesnt say what size network he wants to utilize though.

I agree with jimp, you shouldnt have any problem reaching the speeds that you want.