Firewall/router..

[Frick]

j0 all. Now I'm settled in my new apartment in Piteå, and I have something of a connection to the World (2Mbit is teh ). I also found this cool store where they sell discarded computer parts. I got 4 NICs for like a buck each, and I built a computer with a P2. I want it to be a router and a firewall.

I have Smoothwall, FreeSCO and Devil-Linux downloaded already, I just want to know if anyone here have some experience with any of them.. I'm kinda new to Linux, but as I have a REAL connection that's not a major problem. Soo.. Is there anything you guys would recommend?

 

[Frick]

Nevermind, I tries Smoothwall 3.0 and it works like a charm.

 

[Frick]

The performance was terrible.

 

[SnakeDoctor]

PF Sense is awesome

 

[Kursah]

PF Sense is awesome

This.

Its what I run at home on a custom built PC centered around an Asus N3150-C...works amazingly well and is very very well documented. I even have a spare VM as I was testing CARP (failover), worked perfect!

You could even just turn Ubuntu Server into a router, all these Linux-based routers use IPTables for firewalling. Here read this: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/01/numbers-dont-lie-its-time-to-build-your-own-router/

But honestly, I prefer PFSense. I don't mind command-line, that's actually pretty easy to deal with...but PFSense is a drop-in and it works kinda deal 95% of the time for me. At work we've even reduced how many Dell SonicWalls we offer and sell and instead sell Netgate and PFSense routers and have way better experiences for both us and the customers.

 

[Nobody99]

Its what I run at home on a custom built PC centered around an Asus N3150-C

You need better CPU if you are going to be routing a few Gb of data, i3 would be more future proof. I have CPU with similar performance which I was planning to use for OpeMediaVault and PfSense but I soon founf out that OpenMediaVault alone overwhelmed it.

PfSense is the best choice you can make, I favored OpnSense for a while because they updated their GUI but PfSense soon followed and it has the best documentation and support available. The best setup you could make is using PfSense router and if you want wireless you can buy AP and plug them to your ethernet ports around the house. Remember most of the routers you can buy have security vulnerabilities and they don't offer the features PfSense offers.

 

[Solaris17]

I personally run OPNsense but agree with the above. I really like the *sense framworks.

You can also give a try to Sophos UTM and untangle. both are free. There was another but I forgot what it was damn.

 

[Kursah]

Honestly that quad core has done great...though I'm only pushing gigabit infrastructure at home and 60 meg WAN and VPN tunnels. So far I haven't loaded the CPU nearly as much as expected. I will add that 2.3.2 seems to be less of a load especially with VPN tunnels.

I've used the same board as a VM host and it does surprisingly well even with Server 2012 GUI as the core OS. But in the same breath...an i3 or i5 should do better.

Don't count that CPU out...it also supports Intel HW encryption. Sure its not the badass 8-core Intel found in higher end Netgate routers nor is it an i3 or i5...but at what amounts to 14W power consumption CPU and board...I've been very impressed. For perspective ..my UBNT ERL ran at 7 watts usually with its dual core (iirc).

Plus it runs circles around home-grade routers that cost the same or more (entire build-wise obviously). Considering the price for board with SoC costs less than and consumes less power than an i3 is impressive for dedicating for such a task.

But for multigig throughput, one should and will be spending far more than that little build cost. Though I'm tempted to really stress that system now that you've voiced your opinion...frankly I've yet to ever have a performance issue I haven't tried to push multi gig networks either!

 

[hat]

He said 2Mbit not 2Gbit. You guys are either overestimating his needs by a factor of 1000 (yikes) or talking about something else altogether. Even a Pentium 2 should be more than enough for such networking. I messed around with some router software in the past, using an old P4 Willamette, and CPU usage was always extremely low.

Frick, if using this computer as a router is the way you want to go, I'd first suggest DD-WRT. There's an x86 edition which will run on that machine. If you find yourself looking for more features than that, well... I wouldn't know where to go from there. It seems you may be looking for something basic to me, so there's a basic option.

 

[qubit]

The performance was terrible.

You took 9 years to tell us that?

 

[Solaris17]

You took 9 years to tell us that?

lol didnt notice that.

 

[hat]

 

[Frick]

You took 9 years to tell us that?

Was wondering when someone would notice.

EDIT: I have been thinking about doing it again, so the advice is welcome anyway!

 

[elitan]

I deployed PFSENSE as my internet gateway. If you are new to linux. PFsense maybe the best one