Pfsense AIO router suggestions needed

[ytddewqf]

Hello all, 

 

I'm about to move house and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to start with a new router. I currently use the supplied BT router, which I'm sure you will all agree, is terrible. I'm new to unRaid and doing my best to migrate everything over from Synology. 

 

I would like to use Pfsense however not go through the process of a self-build. I appreciate that this will cost me a little more however I wanted to ask for people's suggestions for here in the UK. 

 

Looking on Amazon, the following seemed to tick a lot of boxes;

Partaker C4 Pfsense Router

 

This will be for a home setting, with at least three people utilising phones, tablets and TV's etc. Nothing special like a server rack but enough power to cover all our needs (plenty of movie streaming etc). 

 

Any advice would be much appreciated. 

 

Thanks. 

Edited July 26, 2020 by LoneTraveler

[Holaf]

Hi

personally I bought this one : 
https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/4000266234442.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.68e86c37wawTLm
With an intel Core i3-5010U , 4GB of RAM and 64GB SSD (m.2)

I have proxmox running those Containers and VM : 
- PfSence
- PiHole

- reverse proxy (Nginx+Let's encrypt)
- teamspeak server 

and since i still have ressources left, I plan to add a proxy, and a transmission client 👍
(and there was room inside to add a 1TB SATA HDD i had lying around since the initial SSD is small if like me you plan to add more services than just PfSense)

 

[ytddewqf]

On 7/26/2020 at 10:25 PM, Holaf said:

Hi

personally I bought this one : 
https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/4000266234442.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.68e86c37wawTLm
With an intel Core i3-5010U , 4GB of RAM and 64GB SSD (m.2)

I have proxmox running those Containers and VM : 
- PfSence
- PiHole

- reverse proxy (Nginx+Let's encrypt)
- teamspeak server 

and since i still have ressources left, I plan to add a proxy, and a transmission client 👍
(and there was room inside to add a 1TB SATA HDD i had lying around since the initial SSD is small if like me you plan to add more services than just PfSense)

 

Hi, 

 

Many thanks for the info. That link looks like a great starting point for me. 👍

[Aran]

I'm curious. Since you are posting in the unraid forums i assume you have an unraid server running. Have you considered setting up pfsense as a VM?

I'm not saying this is the ideal solution (far from it). I'm just curious.

[ytddewqf]

6 minutes ago, Aran said:

I'm curious. Since you are posting in the unraid forums i assume you have an unraid server running. Have you considered setting up pfsense as a VM?

I'm not saying this is the ideal solution (far from it). I'm just curious.

Hello, 

 

I would have preferred to have pfsense running on my unRaid server however my current setup uses a J4105B-ITX motherboard which only has one network port. 

[Aran]

Intel quad nic's can be found online for cheap. But then again, that board only has a pcie 2x lane. I'm not sure it even supports vt-d so it doesn't matter.

But then again: why spending $250 on hardware for a stand alone router when you can buy a cheap used dell (or other) server/tower with full speed pcie slots, 4 ram slots, vt-d/iommu support and double/tripple your sata ports.

I'd vote for a used worstation with unraid and use your j4105b slap in a extra single nic and use it as a backup pfsense router in case your unraid server is down.

There are negatives with this setup (like a little more power hungry) and i don't know your use-case but it seems to me your unraid server can use a modest upgrade

I'm not trying to push you in this direction. I'm just thinking out loud.

[ytddewqf]

10 hours ago, Aran said:

Intel quad nic's can be found online for cheap. But then again, that board only has a pcie 2x lane. I'm not sure it even supports vt-d so it doesn't matter.

But then again: why spending $250 on hardware for a stand alone router when you can buy a cheap used dell (or other) server/tower with full speed pcie slots, 4 ram slots, vt-d/iommu support and double/tripple your sata ports.

I'd vote for a used worstation with unraid and use your j4105b slap in a extra single nic and use it as a backup pfsense router in case your unraid server is down.

There are negatives with this setup (like a little more power hungry) and i don't know your use-case but it seems to me your unraid server can use a modest upgrade

I'm not trying to push you in this direction. I'm just thinking out loud.

I appreciate your advice. 

 

I agree, I would like to go in the direction of a workstation, however I'm in the middle of a house move and so that will have to be put on the back burner unfortunately. It will certainly be at the top of my list for my next purchase, all going well that no unforseen purchases crop up in the coming weeks. 

[Aran]

I totally understand. Back on topic.

[Holaf]

On 7/30/2020 at 8:01 PM, Aran said:

I'm curious. Since you are posting in the unraid forums i assume you have an unraid server running. Have you considered setting up pfsense as a VM?

I'm not saying this is the ideal solution (far from it). I'm just curious.

I only have one server, and for many years I had PfSense running on it (on an Esxi, then on Unraid).
The downside is that everytime I turn off my server, everything in my house lose internet connection

 

I like to tinker with my server (change hardware, etc..), and now my wife is pushing me to turn it off as much as possible to save money on our electricity bills 😅
 

On top of that, my USB drive crashed... So I put a backup on a new one.

But when I did boot on the backup, the array didn't want to start until the licence was transfered to the new USB stick.
For that it needed an internet connection, but in order to have internet I needed to start the array ... not very convenient 🤣  

 

After all of this, I decided to get a small machine that runs everything needed for internet while my server is OFF. that was the main purpose of it.

[Aran]

The downside is that everytime I turn off my server, everything in my house lose internet connection

That is the biggest, and also the only, reason why i wouldn't do it IF you don't have a backup router.

I have an old core2duo 1u server with two onboard intel nics that i use as a pfsense backup router. When my server or array goes offline, the backup router will boot automatically.

That being said, i do understand the logic in a stand alone router.

[ytddewqf]

18 hours ago, Aran said:

 

That is the biggest, and also the only, reason why i wouldn't do it IF you don't have a backup router.
 

 

I'll keep my search going and take a further look at what @Holaf suggested, unless anyone has any other suggestions? 

[johner]

@LoneTraveler - What did you go for in the end?

 

@Holaf - Does the spec of your machine handle 1gbps wan with the fancy stuff enabled like packet inspection, VPN etc.

[Decto]

This is cheap right now, looks the same as the OP shared. I had one delivered last week and is currently ~£154 including 4GB 128GB. 

Took just over 2 weeks to arrive, haven't had time to set up as yet.

 

https://uk.banggood.com/XSK-NUC-Intel-Celeron-J3160-4GB+64GB-or-128GB-SSD-Mini-PC-Quad-Core-1_6GHz-to-2_24GHz-Pfsense-AES-NI-p-1620981.html?rmmds=search&ID=6135326&cur_warehouse=CN

 

Just make sure you get AES New instruction (AES NI) in the CPU which the Celeron J3160 has but other simialar units J1900 etc don't. This is mandatory for PFSense now.

 

I'm not expecting anywhere close to 1Gbps on the WAN with packet inspection etc.

 

 

 

[JonathanM]

5 hours ago, Decto said:

Just make sure you get AES New instruction (AES NI) in the CPU which the Celeron J3160 has but other simialar units J1900 etc don't. This is mandatory for PFSense now.

Not at the moment on the 2.5.X branch, possibly in the future.

https://www.netgate.com/blog/pfsense-2-5-0-development-snapshots-now-available.html

[ytddewqf]

On 8/24/2020 at 12:47 PM, johner said:

@LoneTraveler - What did you go for in the end?

 

@Holaf - Does the spec of your machine handle 1gbps wan with the fancy stuff enabled like packet inspection, VPN etc.

Hi, 

 

To be honest I'm still looking. I think I'll be going down the server rack route and so I am now looking at router rack solutions. 

[johner]

That's where I got to! I'm moving in two weeks, and suddenly will have room for a rack, so now I'm considering a 1u 'efficient' server (have done zero research yet). I had considered just putting this recommended device on a rack shelf (along with the modem which will never be 'rackable').

[Holaf]

On 8/24/2020 at 1:47 PM, johner said:

 

@Holaf - Does the spec of your machine handle 1gbps wan with the fancy stuff enabled like packet inspection, VPN etc.

@johner I don't have a lot of fancy stuff, only load balancing and PfBlocker.
But I can achieve past 1Gbps with a max CPU usage in proxmox of 35%.
 

[ccruzen]

I was right there with you guys (and following this thread) and ended up getting an HP ProDesk 600 G1 Core i5-4570 3.2ghz/8GB/500GB for right at $100 to my door.  I've got it up and running Proxmox with my pfSense in a VM on a shelf in my rack and it's running great.  Threw in a 4 port Intel NIC I had on-hand and haven't had any issues.  Only thing I'm not super happy about is I can't figure out how to enable VT-d for full PCI passthrough support.  Either way, I'm happy and wish you the best of luck figuring out what to go with.

 

[Pourko]

On 8/26/2020 at 4:14 PM, ccruzen said:

I was right there with you guys...

@ccruzen

LOL... I was about to ask can't you get your own avatar, when I found on archive.org that you've been using this for years. Ooops!   :-)

I'll get around changing mine next week. (Unless you don't care?)

 

Cheers!

 

Edited August 28, 2020 by Pourko

[ccruzen]

10 hours ago, Pourko said:

@ccruzen

LOL... I was about to ask can't you get your own avatar, when I found on archive.org that you've been using this for years. Ooops!   🙂

I'll get around changing mine next week. (Unless you don't care?)

 

Cheers!

 

No worries here. I think the world needs as many surprised monkeys in sweaters as we can give it.

[BRiT]

I don't see the issue...

 

[Pourko]

On 8/28/2020 at 2:05 PM, ccruzen said:

No worries here. I think the world needs as many surprised monkeys in sweaters as we can give it.

I could swear this was a selfie I took like 10 years ago. 😄

As you see, I was young and good-looking back then.

Now I'm just good-looking.

Edited August 30, 2020 by Pourko