I just moved to Huston, and lo-and-behold Comcast is some how the best option for me. for were I live I can get "up to" 105 down and 20 up, for $52.34 per month for 12 months, I plan to move this time next year so it works out for me. But for the real problem, I refuse to use one of their modem routers, so I want my own.
My requirements are:
-Low power consumption, "I don't want another huge power hungry pc like my gaming desktop"
-must be docxis 3.0 complaint
-must have a coxal input
-Be able to work well for 3 years or more
-I would like to cash my popular websites like Teksyndicate
-Along side cashing my webpages I want my own cloud build into this device
I have looked around a little and found some modems for 80ish, and the router I want is upwards of 200. So if I can build my own system for $300 That would be great!!!
My real question is should I buy a modem, or should I create my own; and if I am to make my own HOW and what should I use?
This PC for $99 wil make an amazing router. You will want to get a wireless card for Wifi but IDK if this PC has a PCI express slot or not so you might want to get it first then get an appropriate card you will also want to get another NIC if you want Wired LAN too. Note I pretty sure you will need low profile card with this box
If Comcast western US ... one of these ... and they should be universal & should work with most cable ISPs. I recommend calling your ISP to ensure compatibility.
Yes you can use a laptop but the Drivers for the USB to LAN might not work out of the box with PFsense. If you are going to use a Pi you might as well use a retail router (IMO) Wi-Fi might be a problem on the Pi and I dont know if there is an ARM Distro of PFsense but there is probably some thing for the Pi you could use but IDK
sounds good, well you have all been a great help. now of course my next question real first world problems lol, can I run something like a minecraft server off of the pfsense/pc or do i need an additional computer for that too.
Well I think that the short answer would be no, but its linux so I am sure there is a way to do it but it would likely be a pain.You might be able to run PFsense in a VM and then run the Mine craft server on the host OS.
Its theoretically possible but it would be SUCH a pain it wouldn't be worth it, and to run the hypervisor would take a bunch more power than to just run PFsense. Just have a machine for PFsense and a machine as a virtualization server (I have an FX6300 based system with Proxmox VE on it and it works just perfect)
pfSense is built on FreeBSD, not Linux. But on the other hand, Minecraft is a Java program as far as I know, so it should run on any OS with a Java VM. I wouldn't suggest running a game server on your router though. The VM idea could work if the laptop is beefy enough, and I'd go even further to put the game server in its own VM as well.