I have been wanting to build a PF Sense box for a while now, after watching the one Tek Syndicate put up. I finally have some time and some extra money to throw at building one. I have found a few potential options on the local Craigslist interwebz page. I plan on using it as a VPN, firewall, anti-vir, web page caching, and whatever else seems helpful, also please let me know of some other recommended add-ons for a PF Sense box.
Now to my main question, which box would be the best for running the firewall, anti-vir, and what not. Most of the time it will be used for me at home but may occasionally be used for small LAN parties.
Well this depends on number of users really, but if I were you I'd go for the Core 2 Duo machine (either one, but I wouldn't try to use the internal WiFi card, buy a separate access point or use a router with DDWRT or something)
If you want lower power, look into some of the VIA embedded dual core ITX boards, although personally I don't think that's the best option unless you need portability. What are you gonna do on an ITX system if you wanna add a 3rd NIC? You're screwed. With mATX you have plenty of options.
Hope it works out for you, pfsense is the best thing you'll ever install on a PC
Cool, sounds good! Is the TPlink switch a managed one (just curious)? That'll let you do some neat stuff with VLANs and such, pfSense coupled with some decent managed switches and you could probably take over the world :P
It is just something to use for now, I was hoping I could find a small rack mount and cisco switch to play around with sometime down the road. I appreciate the advice!
I have a quad version of that card in my pfsense box, they work great. I've tried other intel cards and the TCP offload stuff didn't work and had to be disabled, but it works perfect on the PT cards.
While I agree that you should use an external wireless access point for pfsense regardless, the new version was just released with a much more recent kernel, it should have driver support for most wireless cards now (probably not AC, but most N cards). If you really want to build in wireless I'd do your research and find out which cards will work. But like I said, using a dedicated AP is a much better solution, not least of which because you can put it in a good location.
I have an ASUS RT-N16 running tomato that I am going to use to handle the Wi-Fi as well as a TP-Link unmanaged 8 port switch for having extra Ethernet ports. I am going to be using the PF Sense box for the firewall, Anti-Vir, and setting up my own VPN (Maybe).
Actually bought this one: http://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=39465585345&spm=2014.12317209.0.0 directly from the chinese site with yoybuy as the middleman.
They place the order you pay the amount and they ship it. They also know english so that helps communication but is cheaper than buying trough aliexpress. Incl customs and shipping I payed about 30 bucks more than the listed price on alliexpress