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    Is it possible to get very cheap appliance in UK / Europe

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    • R
      Reiner030
      last edited by

      Hi,

      in this very good overview of pfSense
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfXImr5q-sw

      they Suggest "Soekris 5501" Hardware … not as cheap as your ebay item but also lowlevel price in compare to "normal" Hardware.
      http://soekris.com/products/net5501.html

      If other pepole needs bigger hardware (1GBit Slot, more RAM, faster CPU) I found:
      http://soekris.com/products/net6501.html

      Should be enough for most Small Business Offices ;)

      Bests

      Reiner

      PS: EU Shop: http://www.soekris.eu/shop/

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      • N
        newbieuser1234
        last edited by

        Yes US seller.  Why don't you just put something together yourself with a jetway motherboard?  It may be a bit more money, but they are great.

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        • stephenw10S
          stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
          last edited by

          How cheap are you talking? I assume <£100 if $150 is too  much.
          How low power are you after?
          How much work are you willing to do?

          A re-purposed Watchguard box might fit the bill: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Watchguard-X-Core-Series-Firebox-/321076136251?pt=UK_Computing_Networking_SM&hash=item4ac1a1093b

          Steve

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          • H
            hackin8
            last edited by

            Thanks for the suggestion - but the basic Soekris 5501 in Europe would cost a total of $350, including shipping and tax.

            The Jetway M/B looks good - but by the time I have added power supply, NICS, case, memory and storage - works out higher price again.

            The Watchguard looks good - I hadn't considered Watchguard as I was not aware that you could load a different software (pfS) on them. There seem to be a lot of different models available - and many very cheap. What models (or how to determine) can accept pfS - and is this a straightforward installation?  This looks a real possibility if I can get a model that can run pfS.

            Answering my own question from another forum post:

            _The smaller Watchguard boxes, the X10e X55e etc, are all ARM based and hence cannot run pfSense.
            The larger units (19" rack mount) are all more powerful the the Alix board by some margin. They all have fans and are quite loud as standard though there is some scope for quietening them down.
            Of the larger units only the X-peak box (X5000, X6000 and X8000) will work completely without any tweaking. They have 9 Intel NICs. They come with a 2.8GHz Pentium-4 and hence use a fair bit of power though it can be easily and cheaply swapped out.

            The X-e units (x550e, x750e, x1250e etc) have some great features and work very well. However they require a bios tweak to boot the CF card and current versions of pfSense have a buggy driver for 4 of the 8 interfaces that means they cannot be relied upon at high load. The other 4 NICs work perfectly though and newer versions of FreeBSD have fixed those bugs._

            It seems that all (most?) of the cheaper boxes are not suited for pfS, but I will keep looking - thanks for the suggestions.

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            • stan-qazS
              stan-qaz
              last edited by

              I'm very happy with the refurbished HP 7900, small form factor system I picked up for $150. It is small, nearly silent and lots of nice features. I added a small SSD and a couple PCIe Intel NIC cards and it is running fine.

              There are a lot of refurbished or even cheaper just "lease return" systems out there that make a nice base for a firewall or small server box.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • stephenw10S
                stephenw10 Netgate Administrator
                last edited by

                That post regarding the Watchguard boxes is quite old now. There is a workaround/fix for the 4 msk interfaces in the X-e boxes, such as the one I linked to.

                For what can be made to work and what can't, see: http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/PfSense_on_Watchguard_Firebox#Supported_Fireboxes

                I am still in the process of finishing that wiki page though.  ;)  I hope to have it mostly finished in the next few days, time permitting. It has enough info to give you an idea of what is required to get going.

                Where abouts in the UK are you? I have an excess of boxes!

                Steve

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                • H
                  hackin8
                  last edited by

                  I am in the South East - just West of London.  If you have any spare boxes that are suitable - would be very happy to get one from you - PM me details.

                  Great job on the WIKI - I wish I had found that earlier, would have saved some searching.

                  Nigel

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                  • C
                    Clear-Pixel
                    last edited by

                    Very compact
                    Used laptop with Intel Ethernet Controller

                    You can add a Ethernet expresscard to gain additional Ethernet controller

                    or

                    level 2 switch so you can run vlans (Only one Ethernet controller required)

                    Note:
                    Using a laptop with Two WAN's a level 2 switch would be required.

                    HP EliteBook 2530p Laptop - Core2 Duo SL9600 @ 2.13Ghz - 4 GB Ram -128GB SSD
                    Atheros Mini PCI-E as Access Point (AR5BXB63H/AR5007EG/AR2425)
                    Single Ethernet Port - VLAN
                    Cisco SG300 10-port Gigabit Managed Switch
                    Cisco DPC3008 Cable Modem  30/4 Mbps
                    Pfsense 2.1-RELEASE (amd64)
                    –------------------------------------------------------------
                    Total Network Power Consumption - 29 Watts

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                    • J
                      jonallport
                      last edited by

                      Have a look for multi-nic thin clients - I bought a BosaNova (now 10Zig) thin client for £20 last week - it's a Geode LX800 board (like an ALIX) - only 1 NIC, but I wanted it for a part-time VPN endpoint so it only needs 1.

                      Anything on the AMD Geode (LX or NX, GX would not have any guts @300MHz), or anything that currently run XP embedded should do the job - plenty under £30 on ebay.  Multi NIC is the stumbler, though…

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                      • J
                        jonallport
                        last edited by

                        PS.  That box you found in the US; the hardware is a NeoWare thin client.

                        http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Neoware-CA10-Thin-Client-E140-800Mhz-512MB-RAM-XPe-NeoLinux-Mini-Micro-PC-SFF-/120865230785

                        A number of companies turned them into network appliances, including Equiinet - the NetPilot

                        http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EQUIINET-NETPILOT-PLUS-Internet-Security-/290869226011

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                        • ?
                          A Former User
                          last edited by

                          another option if you can find one on ebay is:

                          Symantec SGS 1660 (probably best to search for symantec 1660)

                          6 Intel Gigabit ethernet
                          Via Cpu
                          Builtin Hardware Crypto
                          30g hard drive
                          Quiet machine in a 1u chassis

                          power draw on the 120v version 37 watts running..
                          ive been running one in my HOME enviroment for 3 years.

                          its attached to a 60/20 connection and see Maybe 10% cpu utilization
                          running 2.1-Beta1

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                          • R
                            Roots0
                            last edited by

                            @jonallport:

                            PS.  That box you found in the US; the hardware is a NeoWare thin client.

                            http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Neoware-CA10-Thin-Client-E140-800Mhz-512MB-RAM-XPe-NeoLinux-Mini-Micro-PC-SFF-/120865230785

                            A number of companies turned them into network appliances, including Equiinet - the NetPilot

                            http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EQUIINET-NETPILOT-PLUS-Internet-Security-/290869226011

                            This is what I used to use for pfsense.

                            Combine the CA10, with a pci reiser, pci nic & a IDE DOM card and you have a decent firewall.

                            You can find my old post here: http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,40502.msg209156.html#msg209156

                            Mobile Computer & Network Support Stockport, UK
                            www.timotten.co.uk

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                            • N
                              newbieuser1234
                              last edited by

                              How did you flash the DOM with nanobsd?

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                              • W
                                wallabybob
                                last edited by

                                @newbieuser1234:

                                How did you flash the DOM with nanobsd?

                                DOMs usually have flash with many more write cycles than consumer grade flash intended for cameras, phones etc. Therefore you can run the full version of pfSense on them. I have run my home pfSense from the same 1GB DOM for over 4 years.

                                If you want to run NanoBSD why pay extra for a DOM when a cheap CF card would do?

                                But if you really want to run the nanoBSD version off a DOM then the flash procedure would be essentially the same as for a CF except you would need to connect the DOM to the motherboard on the appropriate socket (SATA or IDE) for the DOM and take care that you specify the destination device correctly. The exact details will depend a bit on what equipment you have available for flashing the DOM.

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