Hardware for home usage
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Hello all,
I am trying to configure a home pfsense hardware.
My intention is to use pfsense for both firewall and wireless access solution.I am thinking on using d410pt as board.
I will be adding basic hdd like 80 gb and 2 gb ram.
I will be directly connecting my adsl modem to pfsense and i will disable adsl modem's wireless radio.I want to add a pci card to d410pt for wireless solution.
But i couldn't find a product to solve this issue. There are several mini pci cards but d410pt not compatible with mini pci.I am thinking on using freeradius for wireless access control.
Can anyone give some advice to me on this topic ?
Thanks
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I would not use a pfSense appliance for providing Wi-Fi access, is well discussed in the forum that pfSense support for wi-fi is still weak. Finding a PCI wireless adapter should be easy (i.e. TP-LINK TL-WN951N), cannot say more about compatibility with a really old board.
I am building my unit with those drivers:1 - iTX Board with minimum 3 LAN port (at least 2 1GB Intel) - The unit will take care of Routing/NAT/Firewall -
2 - Separate Wi-Fi AP Unit (they are pretty cheap) with some GiGe ports (to be used also as a switch)
3 - Separate ADSL Router (Bridge Mode).
4 - HP Pro-Curve SwitchBasically I need to manage 2 LANS, 1 clear internet and the other one VPN (NAS/Media Player/ TV / Safe Browsing)
Depending on your budget the solutions are severals.
Going into my details I bought a Supermicro Board (A1SRi-2558) it will be fitted into a mini-case (M350), with 8GB RAM (ECC) with a SSD Intel S3500. Wireless will be done by Netgear R7000 (Stock Firmware or DD-WRT)
Up to 20 devices connected (100Mbit ADSL connection). I know it is a powerful solution and a bit expensive (near 600€ to build the pfSense unit) but I want something ready for next bandwidth upgrades. You can build something cheaper or directly buy a unit based on APU platform (300$).
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I will not use a pfSense appliance for providing Wi-Fi access, is well discussed in the forum that pfSense support for wi-fi is still weak. Finding a PCI wireless adapter should be easy (i.e. TP-LINK TL-WN951N), cannot say more about compatibility with a really old board.
I am building my unit with those drivers:1 - iTX Board with minimum 3 LAN port (at least 2 1GB Intel) - The unit will take care of Routing/NAT/Firewall -
2 - Separate Wi-Fi AP Unit (they are pretty cheap) with GiG LANS (to be used also as a switch)
3 - Separate ADSL Router (Bridge Mode).
4 - HP Pro-Curve SwitchBasically I need to manage 2 LANS, 1 clear internet net and the other one VPN (NAS/Media Player/ TV / Safe Browsing)
Depending on your budget the solutions are severals.
Going into my details I bought a Supermicro Board (A1SRi-2558) it will be fitted into a mini-case (M350), with 8GB RAM (ECC) with a SSD Intel S3500. Wireless will be done by Netgear R7000 (Stock Firmware or DD-WRT)
Up to 20 devices connected (100Mbit ADSL connection). I know it is a powerful solution and a bit expensive (near 600€ to build the pfSense unit) but I want something ready for next bandwidth upgrades. You can build something cheaper or directly buy a unit based on APU platform (300$).
Thank you for your detailled answer.
So i will be looking for a atleast 2 lan board.
I want to build a cheap solution.
I thought using something like TP-LINK TL-WN951N will solve the problem with wifi.
I think i didn't understand the weak wifi support ? Is it related with the freebsd wireless adapter setup or pfsense wireless management ? Because i am using freeradius in one of my setups without a problem. I thought TP-LINK TL-WN951N will handle the wifi and pfsense manage security etc in one box.My next configuration will be something like you provided without switch. Also i will be flashing the tp-link ap unit with openwrt.
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One more plan may be adding a PCI Lan Card to d410pt for dual rj45 support :)
ADSL Modem –- 2 GB RAM 80 GB Disk d410pt motherboard dual lan --- Wi-Fi AP with empty lan ports.
What about this ? :o
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I read that pfSense wi-fi support is not so good but I could be wrong, make some search on the forum. Personally I would buy a simple 1 WAN ADSL Modem (30/40$) to be wired to the WAN port of pfSense unit (Bridge Mode) (WAN-WAN connection)
I would then use your existing modem/router (Wi-Fi capable) to handle the wi-fi as a AP, connected LAN-LAN with pfSense, if the modem/router has spare ethernet ports you can connect other devices.
In this scenario you will only need 2 LAN ports on the pfSense (1 WAN connected to modem and 1 LAN connected to exixting modem/router). It should work. -
The driver in 2.1.X does support that card (though there are several versions of it) but only in 802.11g mode. Search the forum, there are a number of reports with that card. 2.2 should have much better support. Most people would recommend using an external access point instead.
The D410 is pretty old, I assume you already have that board?Steve
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The driver in 2.1.X does support that card (though there are several versions of it) but only in 802.11g mode. Search the forum, there are a number of reports with that card. 2.2 should have much better support. Most people would recommend using an external access point instead.
The D410 is pretty old, I assume you already have that board?Steve
Thank you for your reply.
I've decided to add a wireless app to my configuration as recommended by wolf.I know the d410 is pretty old but for both cheap and low power solution i decided to go with old intel itx motherboards.
I am evaluating INTEL D945GCLF motherboard right now. It seems this is older btw. :D
This project is just for my home :) -
A wireless AP can be as cheap as $15.
I'm using this one for one section of the house that is blocked from my main AP: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704147&cm_re=tplink--33-704-147--Product It might not be enough for a larger space, but it's working really well for me.
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A wireless AP can be as cheap as $15.
I'm using this one for one section of the house that is blocked from my main AP: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704147&cm_re=tplink--33-704-147--Product It might not be enough for a larger space, but it's working really well for me.
i will be also using a tp-link product for wireless ap. I will be flashing with openwrt btw. ;)
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My wireless is this (from dmesg):
ugen4.2: <ralink>at usbus4
run0: <.0> on usbus4
run0: MAC/BBP RT3070 (rev 0x0201), RF RT3020 (MIMO 1T1R), address xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
run0: firmware RT2870 loadedThat is, a usb-based AP. If I had to do it over again I might go ahead with an ethernet-based AP as everybody here seems to think it makes a lot more sense and is simpler to configure. Also I thought I read somewhere that higher wireless speeds are available in that configuration. I am limited to 802.11g speeds.
I am using the embedded solution, just running off a USB flash drive. Can't get any cheaper…</ralink>
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I'm curious to know if you have considered http://www.ecs.com.tw/LIVA/
I am in a similar predicament as I need to build a new router. Low power consumption and high performance and reliability are on top of my priority list. What troubles me most with the traditional mobos is the multi-voltage power inlet that needs an on board power converter module or a full blown PC power supply (heat dissipation and reliability/durability issues).
HK -
A wireless AP can be as cheap as $15.
I'm using this one for one section of the house that is blocked from my main AP: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833704147&cm_re=tplink--33-704-147--Product It might not be enough for a larger space, but it's working really well for me.
i will be also using a tp-link product for wireless ap. I will be flashing with openwrt btw. ;)
Not sure which model of TP-LINK you're intending to use, but watch out; the cheaper models have very limited storage. I once installed openwrt on a TL-WR841N ($20), it worked flawlessly but it was useless for all intents and purposes because it ran out of space as soon as I entered a few firewall rules or DHCP leases.
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use a netgear r7000 with ddwrt for wifi.
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Hello all,
I am trying to configure a home pfsense hardware.
My intention is to use pfsense for both firewall and wireless access solution.I am thinking on using d410pt as board.
I will be adding basic hdd like 80 gb and 2 gb ram.
I will be directly connecting my adsl modem to pfsense and i will disable adsl modem's wireless radio.I want to add a pci card to d410pt for wireless solution.
But i couldn't find a product to solve this issue. There are several mini pci cards but d410pt not compatible with mini pci.I am thinking on using freeradius for wireless access control.
Can anyone give some advice to me on this topic ?
Thanks
If you're still interested in the d410pt let me know… I just picked up five of them off of eBay for $50. Larger mini-itx case than I'd prefer but it has a 3.5" 160GB HD and 2 gigs of memory. Not all of the face plates are complete and I yanked the CD drives just cuz they weren't necessary. I added a dual PCI broadcom NIC so there are now 2 gig ports and one 100 mb port. They seem to run just fine and are very quiet.
At any rate - I don't need all of them. I'd sell at least 2 of them for my cost - $60 plus shipping if anyone wants one.
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@haleakalas:
I once installed openwrt on a TL-WR841N ($20), it worked flawlessly but it was useless for all intents and purposes because it ran out of space as soon as I entered a few firewall rules or DHCP leases.
That's surprising because the various versions of that all have 32MB RAM which, by OpenWRT hardware standards, is quite a lot. Many SOHO routers are 8MB (and 2MB flash). I guess things have moved on quite a bit since the original WRT54 (16mb?).
use a netgear r7000 with ddwrt for wifi.
I imagine that work well. It's pretty far from a $15 TP-Link unit though to be fair. ;)
Steve
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@haleakalas:
I once installed openwrt on a TL-WR841N ($20), it worked flawlessly but it was useless for all intents and purposes because it ran out of space as soon as I entered a few firewall rules or DHCP leases.
That's surprising because the various versions of that all have 32MB RAM which, by OpenWRT hardware standards, is quite a lot. Many SOHO routers are 8MB (and 2MB flash). I guess things have moved on quite a bit since the original WRT54 (16mb?).
SteveI thought that I would have plenty of space too, but as soon as I installed openwrt there was very little space left. I don't have that setup any longer as I put back the original firmware but I recall that there was less than a megabyte of free space left and I wondered why anybody would bother to port wrt on such limited hardware.
Halea -
Hmm. I have an old Buffalo wla-g54 here that runs OpenWRT flawlessly. It's 16MB RAM 4MB ROM. However it's an older version, I don't think current will run on it. I know that when moving to newer kernels they had to abandon some of the older Broadcom SoCs.
Steve
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Gargoyle works great on a lot of the TP-Link hardware… nice interface on top of OpenWRT. Personally, I think most TP-Link hardware hits a sweet spot between cost and quality.
