Honey, I Shrunk the Firewall...AGAIN! - pfSense on a ZimaBoard!

Since we built an ultra-small pfSense firewall for Jon's homelab, Rich has been looking for even smaller and more powerful single-board computers (also known as an SBC) to install pfSense on. Today we bring to you the smallest pfSense firewall we've built yet, the #Zimaboard! This crazy little single-board-PC runs an Intel Celeron N3450 quad-core CPU, has 8-Gigs of DDR4 RAM, 32-Gigs of onboard storage, 2x 1-Gig NICS, 2x 6-Gig SATA ports, and even a 4x PCIe 2.0 slot (WOW!) But does all of this power and connectivity mean it'll make an excellent #pfSense firewall? Let's find out!

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**TIMESTAMPS!**
0:00 Introduction
0:24 Technical specs of the ZimaBoard 832
1:30 How much does the ZimaBoard cost?
1:52 A word about CasaOS, the Linux OS included on the ZimaBoard
2:08 A word about x86 SBCs, and our experience with installing pfSense on the ZimaBoard
2:54 Let's talk about Realtek NICs
3:25 How to disable TCP checksum offloading in pfSense for Realtek NICs
3:57 How we'll test the performance of pfSense on the ZimaBoard 832
4:17 Testing pfSense on the ZimaBoard with iperf3 and the results
4:51 Testing pfSense on the ZimaBoard with OpenSpeedTest and the results
5:31 Let's test the ZimaBoard's thermals!
6:16 Final thoughts on using the ZimaBoard for pfSense, and which model you should buy for running pfSense
6:54 Tell us what services or features you'd like tested on the ZimaBoard!

[LAWRENCESYSTEMS]

Good video and something worth noting is that the issues in pfsense with Realtek don't always show up right away, even when using longer iperf tests. They show more so when there are a larger number of streams and state tables.

[JasonsLabVideos]

Love it! This was a good one ! ALOT of people are going to like this for their Homelabs and stuff, people don't want a big beefy power hungry box any more !! Good work boys !

[chromerims]

Enjoyed this video 👍 about pfsense on a zimaboard, thank you.
Kindest regards, friends and neighbours.

[picklife]

I do have same but wont recognize 10G ethernet board, I did try in an external pc it does work, anything I need to do extra to make it work?

[mohamedfarhanal-subaey]

thank you for amazing tutorial video, actually I install proxmox on Zima board and when I try to install opnsense on Zima board after rebooting without usb the Zima board boot on proxmox os NOT opnsense so is there any ways to install opnsense on internal storge of Zima board? thanks agin.

[pbrigham]

Yes, can you add a 10GB SPF+ PCie card to that PCie slot? Will be nice to see the power consumption and performance even if do not reach 10GB speeds, alternatively maybe with 2.5GB nics ?

[rfvtech]

NGL i was expecting it to at least max out the nics on the speed tests! you should put a 10g nic in it like the other guy was saying on here and see what happens

[hovasty]

Perfect video! Do you think cheaper versions of zimaboard are enough for firewall? Was thinking I'll buy 216 just for pfsense.

[isaacpaintsil]

Please what’s the recommended Wi-Fi card for PfSense in the zimaboard? Thanks

[klotzey]

Were these results with smart queue/traffic shaping enabled?
Thanks!

[donh]

How on earth do you add a pcie card with no mounting housing. I need at least 3 ports. Wan, lan0, lan1 for a segmented network (computers and iot devices)

[itsathejoey]

Last time I tried to run PFSense years ago it throttled my downloads even though speedtest showed normal. Does it do this on the zima board?

[martinkeatings]

What I'd like to see is a home server using a cluster. Any chance you could pull that off with say, 4 of these?

[intertan]

good timing, mine should be in this week.Can anyone point to the driver install option for the nic card?

[ABRetroCollections]

OK, so it handle Gigabit connections. Now what happens if you through pfBlockerNG, Snort, or any other form of IPS/IDS on it? I am sure that Celeron N3450 will crater. Obviously for home, it's fine. Businesses, step up to a proper NetGate appliance.

[Kaz-Oz]

Anyone having video out issues on these boards? Im having a hell of a time getting video. Using the same display port adapter\hdmi cable and monitor, I can get the display to come up once in every 20 tries or so. Makes no sense at all. I keep rebooting the machine over and over until finally a display comes up. Does this trying to get into BIOS, boot to CasaOS or Booting to Ubuntu

[VN_]

Hope they come up with a version of 10 or 2.5g nics

[StrokeMahEgo]

Curious to see netgate's tnsr on it as well

[andrewjeff]

I just can’t see the the value in these with micro pc’s out

Lenovo m720q can be had at the same price or less, 6cores with sodimm ram up to 64gb, and has a pci slot

For contrast I’m using one with a quad 2.5 nic. Sure it’s overkill for a router but just virtualize the pfsense in Proxmox with it.

[haydenc]

Daggum...I just bought the netgate 1100...the zima board is twice that and cheaper...fooey
Ah well...the 1100 does just fine..if it smokes I will get a zima! The zima is a bit overkill...but hey...it's cheaper...LOL
Thanks for this!!!