Want to get into pfSense. Need some beginner guidance.
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Hey,
So I want to chuck my consumer router and get into something more serious.
http://store.netgate.com/kit-APU1C4.aspx I was thinking of purchasing this kit. Dual core 1 ghz and 4 gb of ram, with 8 gb of cfcard storage. I am only using this for my home, and want to know if this is powerful enough(88 Mbps Down,40 Mbps Up Cable connection, studio apartment). I have 1 wireless laptop, hardwired desktop, running a custom built IP CAM server, and 1 or two other trivial things. Obviously, I believe it is powerful enough, but since I want to play with security, I will also be trying to run Snort, web portals, VPN, caching, etc. I am an IT security student, I want to play with as many features at a router level as possible. With running these extra features, are these specs good enough? Does anyone have other suggestions or tweaks?I don't want to spend over 300. Also, I do not wish to use an old PC to run pfsense, and I have no interest in running it virtualized. Thank you for any and all suggestions -
I couldn't find what processor is on that board, but I personally had bad experienced with those low power CPUs and running Snort (Pfsense runs like very nicely, once you add VPN and Snort it gets a little shaky)
I would try to look for a newer generation Atom or Celeron (even pentium)
I personally like Jetway NF9N Intel Celeron N2930 (It goes for $180ish, you can search for it in Amazon). it take a daughter card that can add up to 4 NICs (4x Intel goes for $70ish, 4x Realtek goes for $50ish). You can also add a Intel dual Nic for $50ish. (Any board with 1150 socket or Embedded Celeron N2XXX would do the job, that Jetway is just my Favorite and I know it works well with pfsense)
with a small mini ITX case and small supply you can get a decent system going under your budget.
If you want to stretch your budget a little, I would recommend looking at the Supermicro Mini ITX A1SRI-2558F-O, it have a Quad core Atom CPU (very low power, about 15W) and it already have 4 Intel NIC Plus 1 Dedicated administration port.
Good luck =)
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APU should be fine for 88Mbps. If you want to run Squid or Snort you should use an mSATA or a real HD though. Running from flash (SD card) will ware it out with a package that writes frequently like Squid.
Steve
