For those that are not as familiar with this topic or ... why you'd want to do this, let me quickly sum it up:
Control, speed, reliability. And Control.
I've been running pfSense for a while, as a custom router. Instead of a normal consumer router, such as a linksys or asus or belkin router. I've been happy because it gives me more options and more control over the network.
But between some performance issues with pfSense, and then it not booting back up... I've had to replace my router. I have a Linksys WRT610N v2.... but it's been less than stable. Wireless dies on it, and if I even try to enable QoS (Quality of Service, aka Traffic Shaping) or WMM (wireless QoS basically), it crashes my router. Hard. Every 10 minutes or so.
So I did so looking and shopping. I found a very nice little box that is an Atom CPU, low powered, and supports 2 NICs. And I got a license from Sophos for Home/Free use. Installed it and set it up. Absolutely love it.
This is the box I got. IT doesn't come with RAM or drive, but I had both.
And it idles at around 5-10% CPU usage.
If you're inclined on building your own router, then I highly recommend Sophos. It's a bit "draconian", but it has a great firewall built in. It also uses Squid I beleive to filter the traffic (and block things if needed), as well as to virus scan contents as you browse. Much like Untangle or pfSense. But it's all free, and requires a little more than a couple of clicks to setup.
For anyone interested, I've been writing about it here:
Question
Christopher (Drashna)
For those that are not as familiar with this topic or ... why you'd want to do this, let me quickly sum it up:
Control, speed, reliability. And Control.
I've been running pfSense for a while, as a custom router. Instead of a normal consumer router, such as a linksys or asus or belkin router. I've been happy because it gives me more options and more control over the network.
But between some performance issues with pfSense, and then it not booting back up... I've had to replace my router. I have a Linksys WRT610N v2.... but it's been less than stable. Wireless dies on it, and if I even try to enable QoS (Quality of Service, aka Traffic Shaping) or WMM (wireless QoS basically), it crashes my router. Hard. Every 10 minutes or so.
So I did so looking and shopping. I found a very nice little box that is an Atom CPU, low powered, and supports 2 NICs. And I got a license from Sophos for Home/Free use. Installed it and set it up. Absolutely love it.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856205007
This is the box I got. IT doesn't come with RAM or drive, but I had both.
And it idles at around 5-10% CPU usage.
If you're inclined on building your own router, then I highly recommend Sophos. It's a bit "draconian", but it has a great firewall built in. It also uses Squid I beleive to filter the traffic (and block things if needed), as well as to virus scan contents as you browse. Much like Untangle or pfSense. But it's all free, and requires a little more than a couple of clicks to setup.
For anyone interested, I've been writing about it here:
https://drashna.net/blog/2014/02/adventures-with-sophos/
Link to comment
Share on other sites
31 answers to this question
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.