I've been watching the pfSense video Wendell made a few months ago, and i'm really interested in making my own pfSense router, because, for 3 years or so, my network setup consists of a TP-Link TL-WR841N router behind a desk.
I can't complain about the router itself, it has been runing fine, but i wanted to put something more overkill so i could connect more wireless APs around the house.
Yesterday one of my work colleagues left two Dell Optiplex machines here at the house, one 330 and one 380, he said the if i fixed one, i could keep the other, and i so i did, and kept the 380 for myself.
The hardware specs of the machine are as follows: https://www.cnet.com/products/dell-optiplex-380/specs/
Is this machine enough to make a pfSense router?
If it is, what kind of network cards will i need to make it as such?
Its move than enough.
Thow an intel NIC in there if you need more ports.You generally only need one in and one out unless you want more separate physical networks.
Hell yeah, that is completely fine. Slap in a dual gigabit intel NIC from ebay and you are good to go.
Something like this should work? http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-727438415-placa-de-rede-intel-pro100-s-dual-port-server-adapter-_JM?source=gps
Ran a 380 for about a year and did great.
I'm having a bit of difficulty searching for these NICs, the closest i could find here in the country was this: http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-849127388-placa-de-rede-dell-g218c-f169g-dual-port-gigabit-1000-gb-_JM
And damn, is it expensive...
it's still more than $25 like noenken suggests, but cheaper than what you've found. youd still need to look it up, and check itll run on other hardware.
You dont have any surplus places or amazon equivilent?
Bingo! Found one just like you've suggested: http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-845760475-placa-de-rede-intel-lan-card-d33682-leia-o-anuncio-_JM
No sir, we have not, ML is the closest we have to those.
Very unfortunate for us...
Take another look. That is PCI-X I think.
YES!, That is the one.
Looks like what you need.
Perfect then!
I asked the seller if it works correctly, and if it does, getting a low profile bracket for it is easy.
Besides this, all i'm going to need is a standard network switch and the wireless APs i mentioned before, right?
RIght.
Ethernet into PFSense box from modem.
Ethernet out to switch
Ethernet from switch to AP/other stuff
Well, if you are ok with n-speeds for now, you can repurpose that one as an AP.
OpenWRT supports it.
Now all you need is a switch.
Yup, i'm thinking about keeping it on my dorm room, since it already does the job well for here.
Besides that, i'm thinking about putting a bunch of Ubiquiti Unifi APs around the house, i often get poor signals on the garage and on the front of the house, this should solve that.
Try to go with stuff that is open source supported. I know the Ubiquiti stuff is praised by many but they are pretty closed systems, I think.
I picked up an intel l340-t4 from ebay, it's a quad port pcie gigabit NIC, mine is the IBM branded model, but you can easily find it from Dell, HP and others, it was 35$ shipped, lots of them on ebay. Look over the pcb and see if it has the Delta chips, there are some replicas from China with the "MR-MACOM" chips that stop working after a while(lots of topics about this on the pfSense forum), this goes for dual port NICs like the HP NC360T as well. I got a hp 8300 usff(Ultra Small Form Factor) system to use for pfSense myself, but I failed to notice it does not have a PCI-e slot, so I only have the on board NIC. I'm not sure how well this might work if I do it with a smart managed switch by using VLANs..
Also if you're looking for a nice smart managed switch, I recommend checking ZyXEL, especially the GS1900-24E model, you can't get anything better for it's price, I was researching switches to use with my pfSense router allot recently and couldn't find anything better for this price range. It comes with near identical CLI to Cisco's IOS, there is also a PoE model that you can hook up with your Ubiquiti APs if you go that route.