Need to uses an old netbook for PF does it have the power i need??

[poplap120]

Hello

For the next year or so i will be at a different location then im currently at and so wont have access the my network (i cant bring my servers with), so i was wondering if my old Samsung NC10 Netbook will have the power i need. It will be located behind another network occupied by 30,000 or so. My Internet is a FOIS 25/25 but at the new location i will have only access to about 11mb or so no idea on the upload.

The specs:
Intel Atom N270 @ 1.6GHz (with hyper threading)
1GB ram (might upgrade to two)
160gb HDD
1x 100/10 Ethernet
1x WLAN G Card (most likely not going to be used unless i can turn down the power to cut on the range)
And i plan to add a USB 100/10 Ethernet Jack for the WAN

My plan is to setup a site-to-site with OpenVPN for network access and some Internet routing (not all though), There will also be a road worrier OpenVPN to connect to my closed network while on theirs (WIFI). These are the must.

I would like to be able to run Transparent proxy to conserve bandwidth (also see if i can get it to do video as well), it would also be nice to be able to run snort as there are going to be many people with computer smarts and hacking smarts, and maybe an AV is its not overloading it.

There will be for sure 1 xbox, a laptop, a printer, and an android phone VPNing in. There might be another laptop from time to time but not to often. I might also add a small file server in the future but it would only be pushing backups over the VPN to the main servers.

Im hoping im not asking to much of this little computer, oh and would i use the multi core kernel or the single sense its hyper threaded and not a true dual core??

Thank you

[podilarius]

That computer with those NICs should be able to handle a 80Mbit symmetric connection, so it should be able to handle an 11Mbit connection with ease. Make sure though that you get a quality USB Ethernet and especially one support in FreeBSD 8.1 and/or 8.3.

[poplap120]

Thanks

Ya i figured it could handle the connection what im worried about are VPNs and the packages, but i guess thats going to have to come with testing  :-\

Thanks again

[jimp]

That should have decent enough horsepower to handle 11Mbit of VPNs, packages might depend on what you want to run. Something like squid, sure. Snort? Maybe, maybe not, depends on the rules you want.

USB ethernet is crap - that's going to be your weak point. If you have a VLAN capable switch you'd be better off using a VLAN for WAN and a VLAN for LAN both on the same physical NIC. But I suppose if you had that kind of gear on hand you wouldn't be forced to run pfSense on a netbook. :-)

[poplap120]

True True. Ya right now the switch i have is an old 100/10 5 porter, a cheap little thing, if i can find a decently priced switch that can do vlan then sure i will get one but i have to keep costs down. i will look around.

When it comes to snort i may run it may not like i said i will have to do some testing…

Thanks

[matguy]

@poplap120:

True True. Ya right now the switch i have is an old 100/10 5 porter, a cheap little thing, if i can find a decently priced switch that can do vlan then sure i will get one but i have to keep costs down. i will look around.

When it comes to snort i may run it may not like i said i will have to do some testing…

Thanks

It is -not- hard to find -very- cheap older switches that'll do vlans.  Like an HP 2524, I see 'em on ebay for $25 to $40 often (it's common for the shipping to be an order of magnitude higher than the item cost, but they're still just a 1u box.)

Of course, at that point, you could also just get a -very- cheap older desktop that you can toss a PCI nic in to.  There's generally very little reason a standard home install can't be done for under $50, unless you live in an area where shipping gets expensive.

[poplap120]

ya i know it can be done cheaply, but space is also a factor, i wont have a lot of space. All i need it to do is protect my stuff and connect me to my home network over VPN, for a little bit of time. I might order a switch off ebay for cheap, i have some time before i have to change locals so i am still planning a little.

[poplap120]

One last thing should i upgrade the RAM or is more cpu bond at this point??

Thanks

[podilarius]

Memory is for storing states … the more memory the greater the number of states you can have. I think you are mostly CPU bound if you have a GB or more or memory.

[poplap120]

Ok thanks i will start doing some testing at this point and see how everything works out

Thanks

[dreamslacker]

@poplap120:

ya i know it can be done cheaply, but space is also a factor, i wont have a lot of space. All i need it to do is protect my stuff and connect me to my home network over VPN, for a little bit of time. I might order a switch off ebay for cheap, i have some time before i have to change locals so i am still planning a little.

Try getting the Mikrotik RB250GS then.  It's a cheapish (should be about US$35 new) 5 port Vlan capable gigabit switch in a tiny package (about 5"W x 3"D x 1.5"H).

[poplap120]

hmm interesting will have to take a look.

Thanks