Would this make a decent PFSense box? (Superbiiz 1150 ITX pre-build barebones)

XavierMace

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Apr 20, 2013
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Depends on the CPU you use, other than that seems fine. No wireless, if you were planning on trying to use it at a WAP/WLC too.
 

VirtualLarry

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Aug 25, 2001
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There are no uses for USB ports on pfSense.

This one with 4 INTEL ethernet ports probably will work better.
https://www.amazon.com/Firewall-Micro-Appliance-Gigabit-Intel/dp/B01JHJGG5M

Bookmarked, but wouldn't a 35W i3 T-series Haswell Core CPU, move a lot more PPS than an Atom CPU? Just wondering.

I was looking at this potential build, as something that would last me through a gigabit internet connection, assuming Verizon comes through and upgrades my CO with Gigabit FIOS.

I don't think that my Asus AC68R will push gigabit WAN-to-LAN. (According to SmallNetBuilder's charts, it will, with the stock firmware, but that generally means with hardware forwarding / NAT. I use Tomato firmware, which does the routing in software, which means that it's probably closer to 300-400 Mbit/sec of packet-pushing. Just a guess, really.)
 

XavierMace

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I did not read through the post, but according to pfSense member virgiliomi,

he is getting 900Mbps+ from Celeron J1900 (the CPU Protectli box uses)

https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=113011.0

I guarantee you he's not running any additional modules, like IPS. Snort is single threaded and is the common bottle neck on most of the BYO router/firewall boxes. In addition, if he's testing LAN -> LAN, he's probably bypassing most/all of his firewall rules and what not as well.
 

mxnerd

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Jul 6, 2007
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I guarantee you he's not running any additional modules, like IPS. Snort is single threaded and is the common bottle neck on most of the BYO router/firewall boxes. In addition, if he's testing LAN -> LAN, he's probably bypassing most/all of his firewall rules and what not as well.

Will this be good enough? Just turn the ZOTAC box into pfSense firewall.

https://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-Fanless-Graphics-Windows-ZBOX-CI325NANO-U-W2B/dp/B01MSNGYD1

Don't know what kind of ethernet chip it uses.
 

XavierMace

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"Good enough" is a highly subjective term when you're talking an all-in-one security appliance because what you ask the box to do makes a difference on performance, especially on a weaker box. If all you're looking for is to replace a consumer router with something that doesn't fail all the time and might be a little bit more secure, then sure it will be fine. If you're looking to really make use of having a security appliance, the question becomes murkier.

https://forums.anandtech.com/thread...performance-bottleneck.2485531/#post-38811152

I posted some benchmarks in there of my Sophos box which also uses Snort. I have no trouble saturating my WAN connection (150Mb) with Firewall, Web Filtering, IPS, and IDS all enabled. Mine is a VM, originally running on a host with 2.26Ghz processors, now 2.5Ghz. I specifically single out Snort because you often see people say "my CPU is never above 25%" or such as proof their box isn't being over taxed. Since Snort is single threaded and most of these boxes are quad cores, what are you going to see if Snort is pegging one core? 25% CPU usage which means your CPU is still the bottleneck. What I recommend as a good starting point is this:

https://www.sophos.com/en-us/products/unified-threat-management/tech-specs.aspx

Take a look at their model breakdown as they break out firewall throughput, IPS throughput, etc. However, those number are individually. That does not mean you can turn everything on and get those numbers. Once you decide where your needs fit in the model line, find out what CPU is in the box that meets your goal. For example the SG 125 is an Atom C2358 SoC. The SG 210 is a Celeron G1820. I used pfSense before Sophos. pfSense is slightly lighter on the resource usage on a base/bare install, but Sophos's UI is worlds better.

Also: Intel NIC's or go home.
 
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mxnerd

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Thanks Xavier. I also only recommend INTEL NICs.
 
Last edited:
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Big-core performance matters. DO EEET!!!

(An Atom CPU can route close to 1GbE, but a full blown system can come a lot closer to 10GbE. YMMV depending on the kinds of filtering and DPI you implement, natch.)

A "perfect" router has enough NICs to set up separate VLANs, subnets, etc. You can do it with a smart switch and some trunking/encapsulation, but IMO a routers with 4-6 ports is more convenient. And the thread title does say "perfect."
 

VirtualLarry

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Apparently, the ECS Liva Z mini-PC, which is available "barebones" from Newegg on ebay for ~$220, has two gigabit ethernet ports.
 

mxnerd

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Apparently, the ECS Liva Z mini-PC, which is available "barebones" from Newegg on ebay for ~$220, has two gigabit ethernet ports.
This one?

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856501023

Pentium N4200 burst speed is 2.5G, should be OK. The problem is the gigabit LAN chip probably is Realtek. Cab't be verified though. I searched it's manual and found it's MAC address starts with F4-4D-30, which is ECS vendor ID for ethernet, (http://hwaddress.com/oui-iab/F4-4D-30) probably an OEM Realtek. pfSense probably will have a hard time recognize the chip.

===
Probably will be recognized as Realtek, but poor performance according to this post.
https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/ecs-liva-z.232124/
 
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Fir

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Jan 15, 2010
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A couple of other things. If you plan to use OpenVPN you will definitely want (need) a CPU that supports hardware AES. OpenVPN is also single threaded. Speed tests are essentially useless if you're not using advanced features and in that case you can use any cheap SOHO router! ;)

Intel NICs are recommended however I will tell you this based on our experience using these devices on enterprise hardware and 10Gb connections: Broadcom chips have lower latency under highest throughput conditions. Some tests refer to this as buffer bloat. Stay away from Realtek by all means!

If you need this kind of performance, you can find second hand Dell, HP, etc. 1U boxes on ebay for cheap. These make great firewalls and can be configured where their fans are no louder than a quiet soho gigabit switch. They will be loud when rebooting though.

The only negative from this arrangement that some may be sensitive to is power consumption. They are going to use a lot more power than a sub 20W box.
 

Charlie22911

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Mar 19, 2005
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I don't see it mentioned but I'll also throw in that unless you are doing multiple wans or multiple lans more than two NICs are useless. Don't buy a few 4 port cards and think you'll use them like the ports on the back of your consumer router.
You'll need a separate switch.
 

Genx87

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Apr 8, 2002
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You can always spot the posters who don't actually pay their own power bills.

I pay my own electric bills. These boxes run more power than the OP. But it isnt chugging along at 100% CPU util either. I'd venture to say my wifes kid leaving his lights and TV on all day consumes more power and provides less utility than this box ;)

In other words not worried about it. But yes compared to what the OP is asking about. It will consume more power.
 

XavierMace

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I pay my own electric bills. These boxes run more power than the OP. But it isnt chugging along at 100% CPU util either. I'd venture to say my wifes kid leaving his lights and TV on all day consumes more power and provides less utility than this box ;)

In other words not worried about it. But yes compared to what the OP is asking about. It will consume more power.

For the record my R610 with 2x L5640's and 64Gb of RAM was ~165w constant with minimal load on it.