I have an extra PC, (FX-6300, Asus M5A78L-M, 8GBs RAM) and I want to put it to use as three separate functions. A PFSense router, a modem, and a server running FreeNAS.
My questions are: 1. Can I combine all three features into one physical machine? 2. Can I run PFSense on a virtual machine along with FreeNAS? 3. Is running your routing OS on a VM a security gap? 4. PFSense supports modem functionality, correct? I haven't seen anything about PFSense working as a modem, but I would think that it can. If not I do have an external modem I can use.
I'm using this in my home, which only has maybe 6 devices (only one of which uses wifi) on the network. I realize that this is major overkill for a network this small, but I'm an asshole. I like things under my complete control. I am also doing this mainly for the learning experience.
If there is a PCI modem for whatever kind of internet connection you have, and pfsense has drivers for it, then maybe you could use it as a modem. But it will probably be easier to just use the external one.
As for freenas, you could run pfsense and freenas as VMs but it's not recommended, especially freenas. You're better off running them as separate machines for a lot of reasons, but if you really want to do it then it is possible, just advised against.
PFSense: I still stick to my oppinion, that the outer perimeter defence of ones network should not share the hardware with anything else.
FreeNAS: If you want that because of its raiding / btrfs capabileties than NO. Running a VirtualMacine (VM) adds abstraction to the bill. The VM host will offer its VMs Harddisks wich are actually just files on the VM hosts filesystem. A raid or btrfs settup of virtual disks is a bad utterly useless approach.
I concider it to be. Even with the VM hypervisors beeing generally pritty locked down, they add another layer of failure. e.g. a VM on the host gets compromised, the atacker breaks out of the VM into the hypervisor => got lowlevel access to the router/firewall rendering all its defence useless.
MoDem = Modulator Demodulator.. a modem is a device transforming signals. It depends on what tech your ISP uses. If you have ADSL you could try to find a PCIe modem addincard. If your ISP uses cable than youd need a cablemodem addincard... I assume using an external one, and hooking it up using ethernet is cheaper.
Okay, so that clears things up quite a lot. Thank you both for your input. I will then be using this PC as my FreeNAS file server and keep an eye out for a cheep tower that I can run as the router.
I had kind of figured that it wouldn't work, or at least not be easy, so this isn't a disappointment. Just thought it would be cool if I could combine them all in one to save some space.
Thank you for such detailed explanations. I'm obviously not an expert in networking, so this was very helpful to me.