Suggestions for a cheap as possible system
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You know that pfSense does NOT run on an RPi?
-No i did not. i've only recently discovered pfsense. hence the questions
And stay away from USB NICs, they are really, really bad.
-Fair enough, i've never used one before except on my Wii
So you want to replace a $100 piece of crap from your ISP with an enterprise grade solution. Be prepared it will cost you money! Either for decent hardware or on your power bill when using old HW with high heating capabilities.
-Enterprise would be nice. i bought a 2nd hand Cisco 2900 series router when i had some spare money to throw around. i didn't realise when i bought it that i'd have to code it by hand and i cant find documentation to teach me how to program it, apparently Cisco are really anal about people doing the ccna to learn this stuff. so i'm looking for a solution better then what i've got and not more then i'm capable of in the mean time.
does pfsense run well on a esxi vm?
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You might have some luck with some older laptop… in theory, you can even do with just one NIC if you VLAN tag all "interfaces" and then use a smart switch as a breakout box. But I guess that's not "as cheap as possible" either and adds unnecessary complexity.
i actually do have a managed smart switch so this is a possibility
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does pfsense run well on a esxi vm?
Absolutely.
A whole section of this forum is dedicated to it: https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?board=37.0 -
just found this in case anyone else is interested in this topic… yet to be released and there is no price though
http://www.adiengineering.com/products/micro-firewall/
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Another possibility, http://www.computerworld.com/article/3088608/computer-hardware/a-raspberry-pi-3-competitor-will-boast-an-ssd-storage-slot.html
but I might just throw mine into Hyper-V when my existing box dies.
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i bought a 2nd hand Cisco 2900 series router when i had some spare money to throw around. i didn't realise when i bought it that i'd have to code it by hand and i cant find documentation to teach me how to program it, apparently Cisco are really anal about people doing the ccna to learn this stuff. so i'm looking for a solution better then what i've got and not more then i'm capable of in the mean time.
Nah, it's not that bad. The CCNA is nice, but totally unnecessary if you are not planning to deploy Cisco stuff for a living. The IOS command line configuration is so well known and documented all over the internet that it takes around 30 minutes with google at hand to get oriented around the CLI and do some basic setup. There are also quite a few YouTube tutorials, so it is certainly worth looking there too.
As for the virtualization, pfSense runs well on HyperV too.
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i bought a 2nd hand Cisco 2900 series router when i had some spare money to throw around. i didn't realise when i bought it that i'd have to code it by hand and i cant find documentation to teach me how to program it, apparently Cisco are really anal about people doing the ccna to learn this stuff. so i'm looking for a solution better then what i've got and not more then i'm capable of in the mean time.
Nah, it's not that bad. The CCNA is nice, but totally unnecessary if you are not planning to deploy Cisco stuff for a living. The IOS command line configuration is so well known and documented all over the internet that it takes around 30 minutes with google at hand to get oriented around the CLI and do some basic setup. There are also quite a few YouTube tutorials, so it is certainly worth looking there too.
As for the virtualization, pfSense runs well on HyperV too.
if you can point me in the right direction for ciso docs that would be great… i've asked on reddit and that wasn't overly helpful for documentation.. they did give me a couple of examples of exactly what to write in the script for a minimal operation.
i finished installing pfsense on my esxi box last night and even on a vm it seems to out perform my isp supplied router. i haven't tried any games yet though.
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"So you want to replace a $100 piece of crap from your ISP with an enterprise grade solution. Be prepared it will cost you money! Either for decent hardware or on your power bill when using old HW with high heating capabilities."
Sorry, but I could not disagree more. You can have an "enterprise grade solution" without spending a lot of money, and the heat and power issue is a bit of an overstatement. I just built a pfSense machine for a little over $100. It's not some old system heating my house and causing my power meter to melt. Refurbished Lenovo M58 desktop machine from Newegg ($63 + $3.99 Shipping). 2GB RAM, 160GB HDD, energy star gold power supply, built in Intel gigabit NIC. Added a second quad gigabit port Intel NIC from Amazon.com ($38 + free shipping).
That gives you 5 discrete interfaces and enterprise grade security for $100.
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…Refurbished Lenovo M58 desktop machine from Newegg...
You did not mention the CPU you're using.
Possible candidates here: https://support.lenovo.com/de/de/documents/pd001803
Together with the Q45 chipset and hard disk this can or cannot heat a closet. You didn't tell yet.The chipset alone has a TDP of 17Watts. That's more than whole current systems have.
The maths to determine when power costs exceed the price of a greener unit is simple. I'm all ears. -
::) You did read the subject of the thread right? Funny, I don't see "suggestions for a cheap as possible system that uses only 10 watts or less of renewable energy made from seaweed and runs at nothing more than room temperature".
OMG, a whole 17watts! My PS4 in standby mode consumes more power than that. Do you even remember CRTs? :o
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Not that it's particularly pertinent, but the PS4 in standby only uses 10 watts with all options enabled. ARS offers specifics of each feature:
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Supply Power to USB Ports: 6.3W
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Stay Connected to the Internet"/"Enable Turning On of PS4 from Network: 2.4W
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Keep Application Suspended: 1.2W
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OMG, a whole 17watts!
You only read what you wanna read.
17W is the chipset. You still didn't answer which CPU you use. Those 45 or 60 Watts add to the total.The system cost is always comprised of hardware price plus operating costs by usage period (unless parents pay the power bill).
Do you even remember CRTs?
My education included repairing them. Why do you ask, is yours broken?
