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    All in one UTM box at home

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Hardware
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    • T
      Tubs
      last edited by

      @tirsojrp:

      All those features can be found on the SuperMicro ITX boards with embedded Ivy Bridge CPU's, […]

      X9SPV-LN4F-3LE

      Any idea what the power consumption will be?

      But on the other side the high price you pay for the ITX size. If you can go with m-ATX the choice will be bigger and it will be cheaper. Currently I do have in my mind the Supermicro X9SCM-F board with Intel Intel C204 chipset in combination with the low power Xeon Intel E3-1220L or Intel E3-1260L. By having full VT-d and VT-x support it would be perfect for a low power ESXi or Xen system.

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      • F
        fragged
        last edited by

        @Tubs:

        @tirsojrp:

        All those features can be found on the SuperMicro ITX boards with embedded Ivy Bridge CPU's, […]

        X9SPV-LN4F-3LE

        Any idea what the power consumption will be?

        Shouldn't be bad as it uses a laptop CPU with 25W TDP value. Also has VT-d, AES-NI and all the other goodies you might want. Only 2 cores though.

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        • T
          Tubs
          last edited by

          @fragged:

          Shouldn't be bad as it uses a laptop CPU with 25W TDP value. Also has VT-d, AES-NI and all the other goodies you might want. Only 2 cores though.

          But very pricy.

          I used the chance to check the results of some reserces I did in the past. Intel S1200KP is an ITX server board suporting Xeon E3-12xx and E3-12xx V2. This combination will be cheaper than the embeded version.

          Originally 4 GBit ports were requested. More NIC usually limits your choise. In most of the cases two Gbit ports and a VLAN capable Switch is a good combination.

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          • A
            asterix
            last edited by

            It has a mobile CPU. Not as fast as a desktop processor.

            For your requirements an i3 processor (maybe i5 if u really need the power) on a mini-ITX mobo should be perfect. I had an i5 system up until last month with all the features you have listed. Ensure you have at least 6 to 8GB RAM with a SSD HDD and you should be all set. If you want to go small form factor then you need to go with a decent mini-ITX case rather than the mini-box case as it wont fit your requirement of 3-4 gigabit ports as there is not much space in it to accomodate anything else than the mobo. Go with a Thermaltake Element Q Mini Tower for your UTM.

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            • D
              daffyq
              last edited by

              Thank you all for your input! I appreciate it.

              Regarding power consumption: Since all is on board and a mobile processor, I can probably buy a Pico PSU, which will generate less heat inside the case and lower the noise. I just have to read up on the power consumption to size it correctly.

              Regarding switch with VLAN and two NIC's: That is a good idea, but at the same time, you will limit the bandwidth on the LAN through the firewall to 1 Gbps. I want to have the NAS on a single segment to secure all my data, which means I get 500 Mbps throughput to it.

              I might save some money by buying a m-ATX, but then I need a bigger case, which lowers the WAF. The server has to be visible. (Next time I buy an apartment, i will make sure I get my own server room and my wife doesn't get as large closet as she has ;).)

              Regarding the case, I want as clean as possible design. So the Thermaltake Element Q Mini Tower was a good recommendation, but Lian Li PC-Q16 is what I have in mind. Nothing in front and no colors. It has a cleaner look. If i replace the PSU that comes with the case with a PicoPSU, I will only have one 14 cm fan, so it should be quite silent. The disadvantage is that there are no room for the PCI slot, but I don't think I need it.

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              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                @daffyq:

                Next time I buy an apartment, i will make sure I get my own server room and my wife doesn't get as large closet as she has ;)

                Good luck with that.  ;D

                The i7 CPU is more processing power than you need. It seems very expensive. Maybe I'm just cheap!

                Steve

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                • D
                  daffyq
                  last edited by

                  @stephenw10:

                  The i7 CPU is more processing power than you need. It seems very expensive. Maybe I'm just cheap!

                  It's a mobile processor with two cores. I thought that wasn't overkill. Especially with IDS. I had the impression that Snort with a large rule set would require a lot more cpu.

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                  • stephenw10S
                    stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                    last edited by

                    Personally I've found running Snort on a home network to be more trouble than it's worth. It's been a while since I tried it though. I would assume you would only be sniffing traffic on your WAN connection so 70Mbps max. A lesser machine could easily handle that.
                    In the build thread I linked to earlier the box was built for a 1000Mbps WAN connection and handled that with ease. Though not with Snort or Squid. That uses a low end Sandy Bridge CPU, Celeron G530. Compare the two CPUs:
                    http://ark.intel.com/products/53414 vs http://ark.intel.com/products/65712
                    Both are 2 core processors running at ~ 2.5GHz but the i7 is far superior in almost everyway.
                    It has double the cache. It supports double the threads. It has 'turbo' up to 3.2GHz. It is built on a 22nm scale. It's way more expensive!
                    I can't find any benchmarks for the i7 but I'd bet it's far more powerful than the Celeron.
                    The i7-3517UE is a similar cpu but clocked at 1.7GHz. That scores 3817 at cpubenchmark vs 2260 for the G530.

                    Steve

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                    • D
                      daffyq
                      last edited by

                      I will only be sniffing traffic on the WAN, so you are right! It is more than I need. I'll check if i can find any similar motherboards with a smaller CPU. Or else I'll have to convince my wife that we need to invest in a kick ass firewall cause of her reckless web browsing!  :P

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                      • D
                        daffyq
                        last edited by

                        After reading through the SSD thread, I'm still thinking of buying a SSD. It seems like my installation will take much space, even with logging turned on, so probably a disk that is 64 or 128 GB.

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