Can you repurpose an old Thin client for pfsense duties?
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As above. I might be able to get my hands on an old thin client device...an igel box...one of these...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDwOi1OgWQ4
Theres room in there for a network card...hence my thinking...
possible or no?
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Which model exactly? What are the specs?
Some of those are ancient 32bit devices IIRC.
Steve
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@stephenw10 I think this one is a quad core amd in there. Theres one ddr3 dimm slot (laptop)....its only 18 months old or so....this spec says dual core but the pull out tab on the one ive got says quad core...
Processor AMD RX-216GD 1.6 GHz (Dual-Core) up to 3.0 GHz (Boost-Mode)
Chipset AMD R-Series
PCIe-slot 1x (low profile)
MEMORY
RAM (DDR4) 4 GB
Flash Memory (SATA SSD) 4 GB (LX) 32 GB (W10), larger SSD modules on request
GRAPHICS
Chipset AMD Radeon graphics
Video Memory 64 – 512 MB Shared Memory
Ports (Supported Resolutions) 3x DisplayPort 1.2 (2x max -
Ah, well probably then if it will boot anything. Not locked to a signed image etc.
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@stephenw10 Dunno - not even powered it up....! but as i say theres a card slot in there and ive got a dual port intel server nic that i can stick in there....is 4gb enough or is it better to run more memory...? and - would it do a better job than my current i5 nuc with 16gb of memory (lan a usb dongle and wan on the intel onboard)??
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4GB is more then enough for most things. You might hit that with Snort a load of signatures or pfBlocker and a massive number of lists but you're probably doing it wrong if that happens.
An i5 NUC will be far more powerful but using a USB interface for LAN is almost universally a bad idea. Better to use VLANs and a switch.Steve
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@stephenw10 Yeah - i know (usb dongle isnt good) but its all ive got at the moment...trying to keep the power down if i can....thin client being even better....ive got an 8gb dimm spare so i can stick that in there...as its a thin client if i were to reboot - does everything "have to load back up" or should it be nice and quick..?
I must confess with the dongle running on the internal lan on a 350 meg connection its running very well. When i had it the other way round that was crap...i was getting max 5meg down from my isp. The only thing i can see at the moment is that i cant get the traffic shaping working (i dont think the wizard likes the usb dongle) but ive heard you can force it...
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Your not using it as a thin client with pfSense, it's just a computer.
You almost certainly won't need more than 4GB.Steve
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@stephenw10 Brilliant - ill post up here when i get it (assuming i can get it working of course!)
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@comfy Oh one more question... is there a specific image to use for a thin client type device or just the usual one...?
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Just the normal one. The specs on that may only be suitable as a thin client for Windows but they are fine for pfSense. It's not running any differently to a standard install.
Steve
