I wasn't sure if I should put this in the building section or here but it made more sense to me to put it here.
I saw this video on youtube last night where a guy built a router using an old PC and I became interested in doing it myself. I've never really done anything of the sort though (unless flashing ddwrt onto my consumer router counts). I searched through google and answered most of my questions but I still have some.
Firstly, do I have the right hardware?
I'm going to be installing pfsense onto my old machine.
My old PC is just a desktop computer. Intel i3 2100 cpu, ddr3 ram (16GB), onboard graphics and a samsung 850 evo 120gb ssd + a 200GB HDD.
Also, I want to use my current wireless router as an AP. How would I go about doing that? Do I run one ethernet cable from my Modem > pfsense pc(NIC 1) and then another ethernet cable from pfsense pc(NIC 2) > LAN port on my AP? I read this on google. "You will need a managed switch (Look for Vlan tagging), prepare for your internet to NOT work and swap back and forth from one to another until you have it down.". Do I really need a switch? I've never used one of those before nor have I done vlan tagging. I dont expect my internet to disconnect since its just a home network. 1 desktop, one laptop, 2 tablets and 3 cell phones are all that connect to my network.
Lastly, will I have a performance difference if I use an ssd or an hdd? I read on google that if I want to do web caching(which I will) then I should use HDD because it can handle more writes than an ssd. If I use an hdd will that slow down the performance? Do I have to defrag the HDD if I go with that option instead of an ssd?
I really just want to do this as a learning experience. I have no real purpose of doing so other than I have a spare pc and an interest in it.
One more question: My wireless router has 2.4 and 5ghz channels. If I set it up as an AP will I still have both of those channels available? Can I even use my wireless router as an AP like I want to or do I need to buy a wireless card and plug it into my pfsense machine and use that to connect all my wifi devices to?
I saw this video on youtube last night where a guy built a router using an old PC and I became interested in doing it myself. I've never really done anything of the sort though (unless flashing ddwrt onto my consumer router counts). I searched through google and answered most of my questions but I still have some.
Firstly, do I have the right hardware?
I'm going to be installing pfsense onto my old machine.
My old PC is just a desktop computer. Intel i3 2100 cpu, ddr3 ram (16GB), onboard graphics and a samsung 850 evo 120gb ssd + a 200GB HDD.
Also, I want to use my current wireless router as an AP. How would I go about doing that? Do I run one ethernet cable from my Modem > pfsense pc(NIC 1) and then another ethernet cable from pfsense pc(NIC 2) > LAN port on my AP? I read this on google. "You will need a managed switch (Look for Vlan tagging), prepare for your internet to NOT work and swap back and forth from one to another until you have it down.". Do I really need a switch? I've never used one of those before nor have I done vlan tagging. I dont expect my internet to disconnect since its just a home network. 1 desktop, one laptop, 2 tablets and 3 cell phones are all that connect to my network.
Lastly, will I have a performance difference if I use an ssd or an hdd? I read on google that if I want to do web caching(which I will) then I should use HDD because it can handle more writes than an ssd. If I use an hdd will that slow down the performance? Do I have to defrag the HDD if I go with that option instead of an ssd?
I really just want to do this as a learning experience. I have no real purpose of doing so other than I have a spare pc and an interest in it.
One more question: My wireless router has 2.4 and 5ghz channels. If I set it up as an AP will I still have both of those channels available? Can I even use my wireless router as an AP like I want to or do I need to buy a wireless card and plug it into my pfsense machine and use that to connect all my wifi devices to?
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