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    3 NIC System for pFsense with Squid

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    • N
      neecross
      last edited by

      Hi Guys.
      Basicly what  i wanted to do was build a small energy efficient system that runs pFsense with Squidguard.
      What i came up with was a Alix board but i was soon to realise that 256 MB Ram are just not enough.
      My problem now is that i cant find any decent board with passive cooling ,3 NICs,1-2gb RAM and small size.
      Is there anything u could suggest for me.
      Thanks in advance

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      • W
        wallabybob
        last edited by

        @neecross:

        I was soon to realise that 256 MB Ram are just not enough.

        Not enough to run squid/squidguard?

        There is a number of Intel Atom mini-ITX boards with dual gigE NICs and passive cooling. Depending on your bandwidth requirements, you could use a VLAN capable switch as a "port multiplier" or use the expansion slot to take additional NICs.

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        • N
          neecross
          last edited by

          i was already thinking about getting a itx board and just slam a pci network card on it but would it really work as the ones on board?
          And also dont the itx board consume more electricity than the embedded system like alix.

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          • W
            wallabybob
            last edited by

            @neecross:

            i was already thinking about getting a itx board and just slam a pci network card on it but would it really work as the ones on board?

            Yes, subject to the limitations of the board's hardware. For example, you won't be able to get sustained Gigabit speeds out of a PCI board whereas (provided the CPU is sufficiently powerful and the NICs are of sufficient quality) you could get Gigabit speeds out of on-board PCI Express NICs.

            @neecross:

            And also dont the itx board consume more electricity than the embedded system like alix.

            If you want 3 NICs and more than 256MB RAM you will (as far as I know) have to get something that burns more juice than an Alix.

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            • N
              neecross
              last edited by

              considering that i would have 20-30 ppl on my network at a time doing pretty much nothing but surfing the net and maybe doing some
              small backups is there any suggestion hardware wise u would give me or will just any Atom itx board do(considering it would have a pci slot for additional nics).

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              • W
                wallabybob
                last edited by

                @neecross:

                considering that i would have 20-30 ppl on my network at a time doing pretty much nothing but surfing the net and maybe doing some
                small backups is there any suggestion hardware wise u would give me or will just any Atom itx board do(considering it would have a pci slot for additional nics).

                How fast is your Internet connection?

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                • N
                  neecross
                  last edited by

                  100Mbit/s

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                  • W
                    wallabybob
                    last edited by

                    If I recall correctly, there have been postings claiming the author has seen more than 500Mbps through an Atom based system but I don't recall which Atom.

                    If you start supporting additional networks and want to allow high speed traffic (say for backups) between the networks and the traffic has to go through an Atom you will likely find the cross network traffic is limited by the Atom CPU.

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                    • T
                      tirsojrp
                      last edited by

                      @wallabybob:

                      If I recall correctly, there have been postings claiming the author has seen more than 500Mbps through an Atom based system but I don't recall which Atom.

                      If you start supporting additional networks and want to allow high speed traffic (say for backups) between the networks and the traffic has to go through an Atom you will likely find the cross network traffic is limited by the Atom CPU.

                      But not with Squid/Squidguard, that was just routing.

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                      • R
                        rjcrowder
                        last edited by

                        See this… http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,61782.msg333562.html#msg333562

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