Which hardware solution?

Grand_Agent · Mar 5, 2007, 9:54 PM

Greetings,

I'm trying to replace a dying linksys router, with a pfsense appliance for my SOHO. The hardware must be able to support:

1 WAN
2~3 LANs
Wireless a/b/g standards

I have 2 Windows XP machines (one using Wireless the other ethernet), 1 PC-BSD machine (ethernet), and a dozen of clients who bring there laptops along and need access to the internet, so its important that they be able to connect to the network easily. I would like some suggestions for hardware that will not only have the power for routing and firewall services but to eventually run squid and other tools to keep my network secure and hidden. All suggestions would be greatly appericated.

hoba · Mar 5, 2007, 9:58 PM

It's not so much a question of interfaces but a question of throughput. How fast is your WAN? Do you have lot of traffic between the internal subnets? …

Depending on the packages that you want to run you need some memory. A Snort for example will eat up a lot of memory. A Squid should have a fair amount of mem too to be effective.

Please provide some more details and we can give more exact specs.

Grand_Agent · Mar 5, 2007, 10:16 PM

Thanks you for the prompt response! :o

I have a DSL connection and am considering a possible upgrade to Cable (like I said its a SOHO) The traffic is moderate to heavy for the most part - (ie. uploading / downloading CAD files, mixed media files (audio, visual))

Now that you mention snort I think in the more immediate future I might add snort and possibly Clam AV to the roster.

Basically I want it to serve as the first line of defense, but because this is all new to me I'd like to take it one step at a time (get the firewall up and running then build up more advanced defenses). When I was taking a look at Wrap boards and Soekris boards I did not find the interfaces I was looking for, but now that I'm not sure how much power or memory I need - I could use some suggested solutions.

hoba · Mar 5, 2007, 10:42 PM

Have a look at our recommended vendors list ( http://www.pfsense.com/index.php?id=40 ). If you want to use packages you need a unit that can carry a hdd and which is upgradeable with RAM. Wraps or Soekris are far too underpowered for what you want to do. Depending on wether you need a fanlass desktop solution or a 19" appliance with fans you will find several options at our recommended vendors. However I would not use something lower than 1 GHz and at least 1 GB RAM if you want to run Squid and Snort. These boxes should be able to push some bandwidth too (for LAN to LAN traffic).