My PFSense router build

the pokemon kid · July 2, 2016

Hi All,

I wanted to put a thread up to bounce some ideas off of people who have done this already/ get some input from the community who are likely to be more knowledgeable than me.

Current situation

For my home network I have got a Linksys WRT-1900AC, Its a great router but it has got some pitfalls where it doesn't have some of the nice features (Bandwidth monitoring, Fibre in) which I would like to have. I am currently living with my parents but fairly soon I will be moving out with my girlfriend into our own house. I want to be running a kick ass PFsense router as our main internet in/ DHCP router etc and then have my Linksys WRT-1900AC commanding the wireless within the house.

My Idea

My idea is to take this router build to upgrade my FreeNAS server. It is currently running a i3-4130t, great processor but I want to upgrade it to a quad core Xeon as it will be used a work server for me and my girlfriend when we move in together. This 4130t will then become the CPU of my router. I will then get a ITX motherboard and case to go along with this. However this is where my first question arises... Do I need ECC RAM within a PFSense router or not? If I don't have too, then I can buy a standard motherboard and be happy... Otherwise, I need to buy a Server grade Motherboard for ECC Support.

For storage on this machine, I will be using the 120gb SSD which I have spare in my house. It is currently being used as a portable external drive.

For networking, I was expecting to install a quad gigabit network card into the router via the PCI-E expansion slot. I am not sure which want to go for but I can see there are a lot around the £50 mark. Any suggestions for cards to go for and cards to stay away from?

For the Fibre in, will I be given a specific modem to change from Fibre interface to normal ethernet or can I get an expansion card for the router to do this? If I were to be able to get an expansion card I would move up to an MATX case instead...

The final thing that I will need to sort out for this build is a case. I want to get something uber small, most likely with a built in power supply. The main issue which I have found is finding one which supports a PCI-E expansion slot as most dont seem to come with this. Does anyone have any suggestions on a case which is around the size of the normal router which has PCI-E expansion slot?

Thanks in advance to whoever it able to help me out! I feel a bit out at sea with all this stuff!

Scheer · July 2, 2016

Your ISP will have a modem for converting fiber to Ethernet, I doubt they would let you plug the fiber directly into your equipment even if you were able to support it.

Not what you likely want to hear, but I wouldn't use a PC as a PFsense box unless you already had everything for it. If you need to buy anything you are much cheaper going with a PCEngines APU board which is meant for running PFSense, and does it very well without wasting a ton of power like a PC would. Its also nice and small, but still has support for putting a SSD and two mPCIe cards should you want WiFi (not recommened with PFSense, their support for it is pretty bad) or cellular backup so you could have 3G/4G service kick in if your primary internet went down.

http://www.pcengines.ch/apu1d.htm

There is a second generation called the apu2, but last I checked the BIOS was still a bit buggy.

http://www.pcengines.ch/apu2b2.htm

I believe I spent right around $200 for the APU1D4, black case, 64GB SSD, and a power supply when I bought it two years ago. I used the Rident fork of PFSense as it was the easiest way to get it loaded.

All that being said, PFSense isn't exactly user friendly... and couple of days ago I replaced mine with a Ubiquiti USG and it is amazing.

the pokemon kid · July 2, 2016

9 minutes ago, Scheer said:

Your ISP will have a modem for converting fiber to Ethernet, I doubt they would let you plug the fiber directly into your equipment even if you were able to support it.

Not what you likely want to hear, but I wouldn't use a PC as a PFsense box unless you already had everything for it. If you need to buy anything you are much cheaper going with a PCEngines APU board which is meant for running PFSense, and does it very well without wasting a ton of power like a PC would. Its also nice and small, but still has support for putting a SSD and two mPCIe cards should you want WiFi (not recommened with PFSense, their support for it is pretty bad) or cellular backup so you could have 3G/4G service kick in if your primary internet went down.

http://www.pcengines.ch/apu1d.htm

There is a second generation called the apu2, but last I checked the BIOS was still a bit buggy.

http://www.pcengines.ch/apu2b2.htm

I believe I spent right around $200 for the APU1D4, black case, 64GB SSD, and a power supply when I bought it two years ago. I used the Rident fork of PFSense as it was the easiest way to get it loaded.

All that being said, PFSense isn't exactly user friendly... and couple of days ago I replaced mine with a Ubiquiti USG and it is amazing.

Thats not too much of a worry about the fiber. It would of been a nicety really, saves having a router and their modem in the cabinet.

The CPU needs to be upgraded on my NAS as it just isn't powerful enough. The current CPU is one of Intels low power CPU's 35w's I believe. The RAM is here if I dont need ECC RAM and the SSD is also here, will just need the Network card, Motherboard and case. Would set me back around the same price as the all in one boards you suggest with the extra's needed.

The router itself would be purely wired, it would connect to a smart switch and then branch off to wireless routers and clients across the house.

The options you show are very nice solutions however, I might end up using one of these in our current network as our brand new netgear router costing £200 is a pile of garbage!