Hello,
in the future I would like to use pfSense as Router/Firewall and, therefore, I'm looking for a powerful and energy-efficient hardware.
My requirements are:
The hardware I'm tending to at the moment:
My questions:
Thanks a lot in advance,
Thomas
in the future I would like to use pfSense as Router/Firewall and, therefore, I'm looking for a powerful and energy-efficient hardware.
My requirements are:
- Usage of pfSense (or OPNsense)
- the case shall be a server-case for 19 inch racks
- my current Internet connection is 100/40 MBit/s, but I want to have the option for future GBit FTTH
- having the option for using Snort/Suricata
- having the option for using a DNS filter
- using HAproxy
- maximum of around 6-8 simultaneous VPN connections via IPsec/OpenVPN (IPsec for Windows notebooks, OpenVPN to use HTTPS to bypass some networks which try to block VPN)
- Support for AES-NI
- IPMI
- The system shall be used for the next >=10 years (so it should have some power reserves)
The hardware I'm tending to at the moment:
- SuperMicro A2SDi-4C-HLN4F
- CPU: Intel Atom C3558, 4 Cores
- 4x GBit-LAN, Intel C3000 SoC
- Case: SuperChassis 505-203B
- 8 GB RAM ECC
- SSD: Samsung EVO
My questions:
- How secure are SuperMicro boards? In 2018 there where found some Chinese spy-chips on SuperMicro-Boards.
- Do you have concerns regarding compatibility of my setup with pfSense? Are there any known bugs/issues?
- Do you recommend any other components?
- pfSense appliances are often found with i3, i5, Celeron or Xeon CPUs.
- Would those CPUs provide a huge benefit over my "Intel Atom C3558, 4 Cores"?
- Do you have any experiences regarding power consumption of such more powerful CPUs? (the Intel Atom C3558 has TDP 16W)
- Do you recommend another CPU which provides more power at a comparable power consumption?
- Do you have some experience about the other pfSense systems which are often used?
- APU 2E4/4D4 (compared to this my proposed system should be more powerful)
- IPU662 with i5-6200U (Skylake Dual Core (4 Threads) 2.3 GHz, Turbo Boost bis zu 2.8 GHz, 15W TDP)
- Celeron J3160 (4 Cores, 1.6GHz)
- other i3, i5, Celeron, Xeon systems?
- My proposed board uses Intel C3000 SoC network controllers. Are they compatible to pfSense? Are they better/worse/comparable to widely-used Intel controllers like i210/i211?
Thanks a lot in advance,
Thomas