Mini-ITX Router/Firewall

[Klondin]

I decided to build a router, more on a whim than because of necessity. I'm pretty happy with how it's performed so far. Even when downloading 20 or so torrents I can't get the cpu usage to go much above 10%. The motherboard was more expensive than other options but I think the price is offset somewhat by the included power supply/brick.

 

I did not purchase a case because all of the ones I looked at had a place for a power supply; and because this motherboard uses an external power brick, I decided it would be dumb to have a big empty spot in the case where a power supply would go. I think I am going to try and design a custom enclosure for it.

 

Components:

ASRock N3150DC-ITX (Mini-ITX motherboard with built-in Intel Celeron N3150 quad core processor)

4GB memory

Intel EXPI9301CTBLK gigabit network card

16GB flash drive with Pfsense installed

 

Pictures:

[beavo451]

If you don't feel like making a case, look at the Antec ISK 110.

[TheRandomness]

Make the enclosure as thin as possible, that'd be a build log worth following

[Klondin]

3 minutes ago, beavo451 said:

If you don't feel like making a case, look at the Antec ISK 110.

Oh man, that is almost perfect. It doesn't look like it has room for my network card though

[beavo451]

3 minutes ago, Klondin said:

Oh man, that is almost perfect. It doesn't look like it has room for my network card though

Sorry, I missed the card. Maybe use a USB 3.0 Ethernet adapter if your OS supports it?

[Klondin]

2 minutes ago, beavo451 said:

Sorry, I missed the card. Maybe use a USB 3.0 Ethernet adapter if your OS supports it?

I might look into something like that. I'll have to do some research to see if an adapter exists that is supported by FreeBSD

[unijab]

I recently just built a router/firewall also.

I used CentOS and this motherboard because it had 2 onboard NICs. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157614)

[Klondin]

1 minute ago, unijab said:

I recently just built a router/firewall also.

I used CentOS and this motherboard because it had 2 onboard NICs. (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157614)

That's a sweet board, I wish I would have gotten that one instead . Oh well, my setup is functional, if not ideal