Another hardware question - please advise
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Thanks guys. Very helpful inputs and recommendations.
OpenVPN 2.4 is not multithreaded.
There is no chance of running IDS/IPS at the multi gigabit level on a j1900, even if no VPN were required at all.
Agree. j1900 does not suit the IDS/IPS requirement.
It is clearly Xeon, choosing between R210 II, SM Sys-E300-8D and custom built Xeon E3-v5. All three would fit, although I need to be careful with E3-v5 mobo. I am a little lost for the choice. The SM spec is tempting as it contains 2 10G SFP costing almost double.
I will think a little between these three. Any comments in terms of their relative performance advantage will be greatly appreciated.
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Just the cheapest thing that can do everything you want it to do is probably your best bet.
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I am going to think a little to decide the cheapest versus Sys300-8D vs xeon E3-1230 v5 build.
I am sorry. I keep asking.
How does this stake? Is it good for the purpose please?
HP ProLiant DL360e Gen8 (SFF Drives)
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Xeon E5-2450L EightCore 70w TDP
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4 x 4G DDR3 RAM
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4 x GB HP Ethernet 366i (essentially intel i350, I guess)
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2 usb 2.0 ports
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2 PCIe - can add additional Lan, 4GB or 10GB Fibre Channel ports
These costs £475.00.
Dell R210 II costs £300 plus SSD (£60) + Intel i350 Lan (£100-£125).
I Need to get an SSD or get SATA-mSATA tray to use my old Sandisk mSATA -
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1.8 GHz is pretty slow for VPN.
When you are comparing xeons for this build, the most important factor are price and architecture. You don't need anymore cores than the standard 4, but lower clock speeds will hurt your per instance VPN throughout.
Especially on old hardware like that, 1.8GHz from 2012 will be an OpenVPN dog compared to even a cheap modern Celeron.
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Especially on old hardware like that, 1.8GHz from 2012 will be an OpenVPN dog compared to even a cheap modern Celeron.
Thank you. This is very helpful.
Please forgive me for asking. From architecture perspective, how would E3-1240V2 (3.4GHz, 8MB Cache)-still an EOL in Dell R210 II-stake against D1518 (2.2 GHz, 6MB Cache) please? I know the latter is still a modern architecture. I do not want to sound rude for comparing two different architecture, especially a popular Xeon D family. I am just trying to understand.
This is important for me to understand as I want to decide (i) buy the EoL Xeon as the old R210 II would still cost me closer to £500 after adding an SSD, GB quad NIC, etc or (ii) pay more and get/build a xeon E3-1200 v5 or get the Sys-300-D8.
I am sorry, I keep asking than deciding! :)
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E3-1240 v2 is Ivy Bridge ~2012 https://ark.intel.com/products/65730/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E3-1240-v2-8M-Cache-3_40-GHz
D-1518 is Broadwell ~2014 https://ark.intel.com/products/91201/Intel-Xeon-Processor-D-1518-6M-Cache-2_20-GHz
You can find a CPUs architecture on the Intel ARK database, and here's a link to the heirarchy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_CPU_microarchitecturesAll of those 4 core models will serve you well.
Newer architectures are generally just better. You can't compare across architectures.
2.0GHz Ivy Bridge is not the same as 2.0GHz Kaby Lake.
Similarly AES-NI instructions get improved over time, etc.So if price is similar, go with what's newer. If the new stuff is a whole lot more expensive, then it probably isn't worth it for your situation.
It's easy to google around and find an old CPU that appears to be a monster (8 core/16 thread xeon) for a price that seems too good to be true. It's because the technology is outdated. Not saying those products are now totally invalid, but you can probably find something newer that looks not nearly as nice on paper that will get similar performance and use less power while doing so.
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Thank you. Really appreciate your help. I agree and am aware we can't compare across. I don't think xeon kaby lake has hit the retail market. At least, I can't see anything in the UK yet.
I was kind of playing around with E3 v5 config. Depending on the CPU and graphics, it is about £900 inc VAT, without a QP intel NIC, which would add another £50-£5. The overall difference in the newer xeon build is give or take 50, depending on the choice of E3 V5 CPU and video card.
I will any way share the spec, if some were to be interested in.
Xeon E3-v5
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1275 V5 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor (£331.90 @ Alza)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£75.95 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: ASRock E3C236D2I Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard (£204.92 @ More Computers)
Memory: Kingston ValueRAM 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£36.81 @ BT Shop)
Memory: Kingston ValueRAM 4GB (1 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£36.81 @ BT Shop)
Storage: ADATA Premier SP550 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£49.37 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case (£64.48 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: Silverstone Strider Platinum 550W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£99.95 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £900.19
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-04-21 23:02 BST+0100I could not find a paired 2 x 4 GB ECC RAM in PCPitparker UK.
IBM intel i-340 t4
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=IBM%20INTEL%20QUAD%20PORT%20GIGABIT%20PCI-E%20SERVER%20NETWORK%20ADAPTER%20CARD%2049Y4242%20I340-T4%20%7C&rt=nc&LH_PrefLoc=1&_trksid=p2045573.m1684
The xeon e3-1240 v2 R210-II look very attractive indeed as a new build does not seem worth it for the purpose, unless I leverage this to run multiple services (i) PfSense FW/Router, (ii) VPN, (iii) Suricata, (iv) media server and (v) NAS. My initial thought was to run (i) to (iii) on one platform and (iv) and (v) on the other.
I am going to think a little, decide and come back.
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Although running all the above five on a single platform looks attractive, personally, I think it poses a security risk. It also defeats the purpose of running the FW router as a standalone service
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This is important for me to understand as I want to decide (i) buy the EoL Xeon as the old R210 II would still cost me closer to £500 after adding an SSD, GB quad NIC, etc or (ii) pay more and get/build a xeon E3-1200 v5 or get the Sys-300-D8.
The question is how much you have to pay more!!! The Xeon D-15x8 platform is able to route 1 GBit/s at the WAN with ease,
and due to the capable of AES-NI it might be speeding up IPsec VPN and OpenVPN since version 2.4 based on the pfSense version
2.4, ok its on Beta status but together with the Xeon D-15x8 platform it is playing more nice then the pfSense version 2.3.3-px.Xeon E7 = big
Xeon E5 = mid size
Xeon E3 = small
Xeon D-15x8 = Xeon lightCPU core is not the same as another CPU core, the Xeon D-15x8 platform is a Xeon Core light and its benefits
will be really nice matching to a firewall, but for raw and strong power machines, the Xeon E3/E5 will be perfect
and not to beat, in my eyes. Its made for 24/7, supports ECC RAM, USB3 and 1/10GbE will round up that points.Often peoples are only looking on some things that could be in their game play, but it is more a detailed thing to know what
exactly you will reach or you must solve out, or in some special cases it might be making more sense to take then a really
strong and powerful platform that is really able to fit all your needs.Although running all the above five on a single platform looks attractive, personally, I think it poses a security risk. It also defeats the purpose of running the FW router as a standalone service
Only in some rarely situations it might be good to set up a firewall or a router inside of a VM, and then also only on dedicated machines
with no other VMs, related to the safety needs. -
@BlueKobold:
due to the capable of AES-NI it might be speeding up IPsec VPN and OpenVPN since version 2.4 based on the pfSense version
2.4Please stop with this nonsense about AES-NI not working with OpenVPN 2.3.
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Yeah, you've got a bunch of weird ideas bro.
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AES-NI doesn't work well on pfSense prior to 2.4
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OpenVPN 2.4 is multithreaded
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Only virtualize pfSense on a dedicated machine :o What then would be the point of virtualizing?
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J1900 can do gigabit+ IDS/IPS….
Wrong on all accounts.
Being wrong is one thing, bu you are wrong way more than you are right and you keep spreading the same misinformation over, and over, and over again.
What's worse is your profile makes you look like you know what you're talking about, sort of….Please stop or go away.
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yeah you'll want a xeon if you want to eventually inspect a total of 5 gigabits of traffic.
Let's take a step back for a moment. pfSense is not the right choice for routing 4 or 5Gbps of traffic, packet inspection needs aside. OP, what Cisco switch do you have? For that kind of traffic, assuming you really have that need, a L3 switch is a much better choice than using pfSense to route between internal network segments.
And for packet inspection, with the right switch (which is pretty much any managed switch, L3 or no), you're able to set up a dedicated box for that, one that you don't have to route traffic through. You can use port mirroring on your switch to send any traffic you like to a dedicated inspection box without imposing slowdowns on the actual routing.
If those are really your requirements, I'd go one of two ways:
1. Buy a dedicated small Kaby lake (not Xeon) system with the fastest CPU clock speed you can muster for pfSense. The fast clock speed is your friend with OpenVPN. Buy another machine to handle packet inspection and use port mirroring on your switch to send whatever traffic you like to it.
2. Buy a beefy 1U server and use it as a hypervisor. Plan to dedicate at least 2 cores to pfSense and about 1GB of RAM, and if you wish, you can dedicate NICs as well. That pfSense instance should handle only LAN(s) to WAN routing and VPN, presuming you have a L3 switch. The rest of the resources on the hypervisor can host another VM (pfSense or otherwise) to handle any packet inspection needs.
I have my doubts as to whether you really have a requirement for 4Gbps routing, but, again, if you do, pfSense is probably not the best tool for the job.
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Thanks all for helping me.
@BlueKobold:
how much you have to pay more!!! The Xeon D-15x8 platform is able to route 1 GBit/s at the WAN with ease
The difference between an E3-v2 and D15xx/E3-v5 is double the price. But, thanks for the heads up on the D series. I would be keen to see its VPN THROUGHPUT.
what Cisco switch do you have? For that kind of traffic, assuming you really have that need, a L3 switch is a much better choice than using pfSense to route between internal network segments
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my requirements, which are given above are: a FW Router - PfSense, VPN for internet facing devices and suricata.
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Cisco SG300 managing multiple Vlans and route internal traffic. I want to leverage this switch's features as much as possible without having to knock the front door. I do want to use its L3.
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set up a separate server, after the above is complete, for media, NAS. Etc. I want to maximise the speed as much as possible, > 1gb, 4-10 Gb for internal server access and expose it on a few devices that require access to this server. To achieve this, either I need to link aggregate the GB Ports or get a couple of 10 Gb Sfp FC cards, connect the server through this and enable access to devices via a 10 Gb switch or any alternative. I therefore want to future proof the FW Router box to achieve this speed.
Isn't packet inspection done at the firewall please? If we run it sepearately, do I need to maintain the routing table here as well? How to filter to ensure anything that comes on this does not bypass the FW and VLAN rules? I'm sorry it may be a naive question.
I like both the approaches 2 boxes vs 1 server. Do I need a licence to run a hypervisor please? If I buy a 1u server, I could then run all my requirements (1 and 3) plus DPI as VMs. One concern is: isn't a good practice to run the FW separately? I guess VM achieves it.
Thanks again.
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@BlueKobold:
due to the capable of AES-NI it might be speeding up IPsec VPN and OpenVPN since version 2.4 based on the pfSense version
2.4Please stop with this nonsense about AES-NI not working with OpenVPN 2.3.
AES-NI is speeding up a IPsec tunnel to +/- 400 MBit/s throughput with a SG-4860 unit from the pfSense store, but but
not the OpenVPN tunnel due to his TUN/TAP architecture (based on the information from @gonzopancho) that was also
there in version 2.3! But since OpenVPN 2.4 at first we get multicore CPU usage and on top of that the AES-NI is able
to sped up then available to chose and use AES-GCM mode. LinkOpenVPN has problems that will not be solved by faster crypto. The tun/tap interface is the bottleneck.
Link ok 11 month old and not really
actual since OpenVPN 2.4 with AES-GCM mode.So what was now wrong here!?
Yeah, you've got a bunch of weird ideas bro.
Because you said?
•AES-NI doesn't work well on pfSense prior to 2.4
OpenVPN is now available on pfSense
•OpenVPN 2.4 is multithreaded
Currently, OpenVPN is scaled on SMP machines by adding processes rather than threads.
OpenVPN RoadmapAnd on pfSense OpenVPN will be able to get for each tunnel another CPU core in usage.
For sure not a real smp usage but together with the multicore usage of the (pf4) since
pfSense version 2.2 more then enough as before with only and "real single CPU core threated"•J1900 can do gigabit+ IDS/IPS….
I never said or wrote this!
Wrong on all accounts.
If you mean!
Being wrong is one thing, bu you are wrong way more than you are right and you keep spreading the same misinformation over, and over, and over again.
What's worse is your profile makes you look like you know what you're talking about, sort of….
Please stop or go away.
So I have to leaf that forum now?
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What's wrong is your information.
There is no multicore support in OpenVPN 2.4
There is already AES-NI support.
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Let's take a step back for a moment. pfSense is not the right choice for routing 4 or 5Gbps of traffic, packet inspection needs aside.
Huh? What makes you say that? Perhaps I am misunderstanding you so please clarify. Are you saying pfSense can't do more than 4 or 5Gbps? If so, you are very wrong. Only limitation is hardware. Our 8 core Atom based hardware can do that without issues.
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•AES-NI doesn't work well on pfSense prior to 2.4
@BlueKobold:
Just so I'm following, your reference that pfSense didn't support AES-NI prior to 2.4 is some reddit conversation? :o
Here's the convo:
@https://www.reddit.com/r/PFSENSE/comments/5l45jk/openvpn_240_is_now_available_on_pfsense_24/:Whoah… we could finally get AES-NI hardware crypto acceleration for OpenVPN! Hurray for AES-GCM!
Doesn't AES-NI already work?
AES-NI accelerates certain AEAD ciphers (AES-GCM). AES-GCM is finally supported in OpenVPN 2.4, not in previous versions. So yes AES-NI is capable of accelerating IPsec in pfSense, but not OpenVPN
Authenticated Encryption with Associated Data ciphers: in short are ciphers that do their own authentication in house, they don't use a separately configured SHA algorithm. It's all done within the cipher. Popular AEAD ciphers include ChaCha, GCM, probably others.
I don't know who told that guy that AES-NI only works on AEAD ciphers, but he is wrong. Here is a link to an actual reference, Intel's White Paper on AES-NI where they use it to accelerate CBC (CBC is not an AEAD cipher). CBC is the go-to encryption method for OpenVPN prior to 2.4 AND post 2.4 for a VPN client since almost no VPN providers support GCM.
https://software.intel.com/sites/default/files/m/d/4/1/d/8/10TB24_Breakthrough_AES_Performance_with_Intel_AES_New_Instructions.final.secure.pdfThis is what I mean. Some dude on reddit says that pfSense didn't support AES-NI prior to 2.4. You, for some reason just took that silly little piece of trolling as gospel and started repeating it on this forum. Some one will probably believe you if you keep it up….
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•OpenVPN 2.4 is multithreaded
@BlueKobold:
Currently, OpenVPN is scaled on SMP machines by adding processes rather than threads.
OpenVPN RoadmapOpenVPN 2.4 is "multi-threaded" in the way you are referring to in the same way as in previous versions, you make multiple clients and add them to a gateway group. This is not multithreading and has it's own set of limitations. You could also do this in pfSense 2.3. If you would have read to the end of the very short paragraph you quoted you would have seen that OpenVPN is not multithreaded. ;)
Lack of multithreading is closely tied to the current event system implementation.
I made the important parts easy to read since you obviously missed it. Also, here's a link to the four line paragraph you quoted: https://community.openvpn.net/openvpn/wiki/RoadMap#Threading
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•J1900 can do gigabit+ IDS/IPS….
I never said or wrote this!
Yes, you did. I guess you aren't paying attention when you make hardware recommendation? You said that if OpenVPN wasn't the main concern then a J1900 could do the job. The OP had already stated they wanted to inspect 1Gb+ of traffic.
@SSri:Do you want to inspect your 4 gigabit LAN traffic or just the WAN?
A gig to start with. But, would like to keep that possibility down the line. I know, I won't replace this for a few more years unless this fails.
The IDS/IPS is one of the reasons for going down the Xeon route.
@BlueKobold:
If here the main part is not really pointed to the maximum OpenVPN throughput, it could really be that the Qotom J1900
4-core - 4 x Intel LAN build - 8GB RAM, 120GB mSATA- 10 watts - $260 will do the job also.–-------------------------------------------------------
Being wrong is one thing, bu you are wrong way more than you are right and you keep spreading the same misinformation over, and over, and over again.
What's worse is your profile makes you look like you know what you're talking about, sort of….
Please stop or go away.
@BlueKobold:
So I have to leaf that forum now?
::), obviously not, but maybe don't make recommendation on what others should spend their money on if you aren't paying attention to what they need vs what you are recommending. It would be nice if you would stop repeatedly posting incorrect information on the forums about how pfSense can't handle AES-NI prior to 2.4, or OpenVPN supports multithreading in 2.4, etc.
What I meant by that was it's fine to be wrong, we all are, myself more than most for sure. But I know people have corrected you multiple times in multiple threads but you just ignore it and keep running around spouting off the same misinformation.
So yes, please stop. -
Thanks every one.
what Cisco switch do you have? For that kind of traffic, assuming you really have that need, a L3 switch is a much better choice than using pfSense to route between internal network segments
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my requirements, which are given above are: a FW Router - PfSense, VPN for internet facing devices and suricata.
-
Cisco SG300 managing multiple Vlans and route internal traffic. I want to leverage this switch's features as much as possible without having to knock the front door. I do want to use its L3.
-
set up a separate server, after the above is complete, for media, NAS. Etc. I want to maximise the speed as much as possible, > 1gb, 4-10 Gb for internal server access and expose it on a few devices that require access to this server. To achieve this, either I need to link aggregate the GB Ports or get a couple of 10 Gb Sfp FC cards, connect the server through this and enable access to devices via a 10 Gb switch or any alternative. I therefore want to future proof the FW Router box to achieve this speed.
Isn't packet inspection done at the firewall please? If we run it sepearately, do I need to maintain the routing table here as well? How to filter to ensure anything that comes on this does not bypass the FW and VLAN rules? I'm sorry it may be a naive question.
I like both the approaches 2 boxes vs 1 server. Do I need a licence to run a hypervisor please? If I buy a 1u server, I could then run all my requirements (1 and 3) plus DPI as VMs. One concern is: isn't a good practice to run the FW separately? I guess VM achieves it.
Thanks again.
Thought a little about it, weighed the 5 year old EoL E3-1240v2 with the modern architecture, considering the kind of VPN throughput and IDS/IPS I want. I believe a new CPU (not an EOL), higher clock frequency, etc would help push a lot of vpn bandwidth than an old machine. Adding, IDS/Ips mean I need more cores/threads.
I will look out for a new CPU and not E3 1240 V2.
I know it is going to cost me to go after a new CPU. I need to decide if (a) i can go down the Kaby lake that has a highest clock frequency, or take Xeon E3 v5 Or D series or even Ryzen and (b) keep requirement (3) above as a separate server or run multiple services as VMs on a single machine.
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Let's take a step back for a moment. pfSense is not the right choice for routing 4 or 5Gbps of traffic, packet inspection needs aside.
Huh? What makes you say that? Perhaps I am misunderstanding you so please clarify. Are you saying pfSense can't do more than 4 or 5Gbps? If so, you are very wrong. Only limitation is hardware. Our 8 core Atom based hardware can do that without issues.
I was basing that on numbers I've seen in a worst case scenario with a stateful pf firewall and small packets. I stand corrected.