New to PFSense, Ordered Topton Box - Few Questions

chanabra

Hello,

I am new to pfSense, I probably jumped the gun but I ordered a Totpon J4125 8GB DDR4 RAM 4*Intel Gigabit RJ45 Lans W/ 128GB SSD.

My current ISP is a local Cable Company providing ~400 down // 25 up.

I have a number of surveillance cams, iot sensors, smart outlets, etc running on a Rpi 4 8gb home assistant server (for now), and a PiHole server runinng on another Rpi4. I recently picked up a conversion kit for a RPi4 to a 8 Channel Lora IOT gateway and it prompted me to look into my network security and I found it to be extremely lacking.

For now I cannot afford a gigabit connection from my ISP but I don't want to rule it out ever. Also, I may look into a backup network provider (maybe a 4g connection).

From my limited research I had thought I would setup my network with Modem --> PFSense --> Managed Switch? ( CRS326-24G-2S+RM ?? accepting recommendations) --> vlan for personal wifi network me and gf &&& vlan for guest network allowing no connection to our home network but just throttled internet &&& vlan for isolated IOT wifi network w/ rpi4 lora gateway --- also want to possibly use my GLI-NET Brume and setup the ability to remote in on wireguard with reverse proxy

I suppose I would use the SFP+ and set it up to my Plex server, leaving an extra sfp+ for future and I was thinking I could possibly have pihole running on the pfsense box since there is a bit of power (i think) in what I ordered, set it on another container, and use my current rpihole as a backup dns.

In the future I am looking to do a homelab build but I am just trying to setup the network security right now. I am looking into 12U Racks, and different options for a reasonably priced server, power conditioner, backup power, cooling, etc. That would utilize the 2nd SFP+...

Questions:

Is my Topton J4125 8GB DDR4RAM 4X1GBE INTEL RJ45 128GB SSD an okay purchase? I am not entirely against returning it although paying for shipping back to China sucks I would like to do this right and bite the bullet.

Do I need a managed switch for what I want to do? Or is the PFSense box just fine on it's own?

Let's say I came up financially real quick and was able to afford a gigabit connection , would this Topton box be a waste at this point requiring a new pfsense box? I have been looking at 10GB switches and the idea of having that bandwidth at least on my LAN sounds really nice.

Is there any other thoughts anyone has to more or less future proof myself?

I apologize if I missed any detail and I will respond quickly if anyone blesses me with their time and expertise.

Thanks for reading

EDIT: Please send any great books or elearning material I can purchase or look into - I am aware I have work to do and am willing to do it. Thanks

stephenw10

I've never tested that, or any of the many clones of it, myself but assuming the hardware itself is good I would expect it to be fine. Or course I'd rather you bought a Netgate device.
I would expect that to pass 1G for firewall & NAT at least.

It looks like your requirements are for more than 4 subnets/interfaces so you would need to use VLANs and that requires a managed switch.

Steve