Computer system Requirement for pfsense

Abiny

Hello,

I am planning to setup pfsense for our school.
I am planning to get a computer with 1TBHDD, 8GB of RAM, Corei7 processor and extra gigabit NIC. Will this spec be enough for a school with 1000 - 2000 users. Or do I need to buy one of the Pfsense appliances.

Thanks

AndyRH

Part of the requirements are the packages you plan on running and the bandwidth.
For reasonable rules and 1Gb that machine is more than enough. Others can speak better to package requirements.

akuma1x

@abiny I know you didn't get into many details, but depending on the other specs of your network (cabling, switches, physical layout, wireless access points, etc.), I don't think you want to run up to 2000 users on a DIY pfsense box with just 1 WAN and 1 LAN port. DIY is fine, just be sure to add more physical NIC ports!

This would be a perfect scenario for the Netgate XG-7100 box. That way, you could spread the network out on your campus, and take advantage of the built-in switch connected to the hi-speed SoC backplane for better performance.

https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/solutions/xg-7100-1u/index.html

Like I said, I don't know what interface selections you chose, so you may have already planned for this. I wouldn't run a school setting, with that many users, on just 2 interfaces - WAN and LAN. If you're still in the planning stage, consider adding more interface NICs, for more flexibility.

stephenw10

Yeah the things required to answer that are:
What is your WAN bandwidth?
Do you need to also filter between internal subnets?
What packages are you planning to run?
Are you going to use VPNs?

Steve

JKnott

@abiny

Check my sig. I bought that computer last year and am quite happy with it. The 1 TB drive is way overkill.

NollipfSense

@abiny said in Computer system Requirement for pfsense:

Hello,

I am planning to setup pfsense for our school.
I am planning to get a computer with 1TBHDD, 8GB of RAM, Corei7 processor and extra gigabit NIC. Will this spec be enough for a school with 1000 - 2000 users. Or do I need to buy one of the Pfsense appliances.

Thanks

You wouldn't need one TB hard drive, a 128GB SSD, and used the saving to up the RAM to 16GB. Seriously, take a look at the Netgate XG-7100 as earlier suggested...