Build Or Buy your Firewall? Pfsense-OPNsense Router

Amazon Affiliate links to the equipment I use
Elgato Wave:1 Premium USB Condenser Microphone and Digital Mixing Solution, Anti-Clipping Technology, Tactile Mute, Streaming and Podcasting

Sony Alpha a6400 Mirrorless Camera
Rode Microphones Wireless Go Compact Transmitter/Receiver Wireless Solution with Knox Gear Clip-On Lavalier Microphone (2 Items)
Neewer 2 Packs Dimmable Bi-Color 480 LED Video Light and Stand Lighting Kit
Manfrotto 290 Xtra Aluminum 3-Section Tripod Kit with Fluid Video Head
Sony Alpha a6400 Mirrorless Camera
Rode Microphones Wireless Go Compact Transmitter/Receiver Wireless Solution with Knox Gear Clip-On Lavalier Microphone (2 Items)
Neewer 2 Packs Dimmable Bi-Color 480 LED Video Light and Stand Lighting Kit
Manfrotto 290 Xtra Aluminum 3-Section Tripod Kit with Fluid Video Head

[nadtz]

I know it's all the rage to virtualize everything now a days but I agree, I have a little low power (10w) machine for opnsense and a 65w machine for my nas. Everything else runs on an Epyc Proxmox server (used to be an old Xeon) and that way if I have to restart the Proxmox machine my whole network doesn't go down. That said I know lots of people do go virtual and in the end so long as it works it's all good.

[truckerallikatuk]

As someone who has virtualised both PFSense and OPNsense, for a simple network, it's fine. If things get complex, it gets annoying. But the absolute best idea is to enable hardware passthrough, and give your virtual router all your WAN port(s), this usually means one NIC for WAN and another for LAN. Let the internal bridge handle LAN stuff, as that's fine. Just let the router software have absolute control over the external links.

[mcguiremnc]

Actually virtualizing pfsense is awesome and adds a whole other level of backup, albeit not needed. I utilize my old dual nic x58/i7-950/24GB RAM system currently with Win10/Hyper-V and 8TB of storage + 240GB SSD. It's not only a pfsense/OpenVPN firewall but also my NAS and jellyfin media server which also gives purpose to my old 1TB and 2TB HDD's I'd otherwise have no use for. The old processor doesn't support AES but I'll eventually move my current 12700K system into this role when I upgrade to Arrow-lake and then it will also be a machine learning training station (24x7 GPU processing). Lot of hats for one system but all functions I need.

[shephusted]

a 3rd gen hp refurb is probably the best option in terms of price, availability and expandability - just add some more ram - you need 32gb - you will not get this with appliances, get an i5/i7 - dell is not recommended - proprietary parts - hp is more better but any old pc can do the job for people just want to check it out - opnsense has better licensing than pfsense but they are both free and good generally - good advice to keep it non virtualized - for smb they want to go HA and use link agg with multiple isp

[xCheddarBbx]

Thinking about build one on a cheap old Dell from ebay for fun and science.
Cheers.

[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

[antipode_ghost]

Neither PFsense or OPNsense run on Raspberry Pi, why do you keep mentioning it?

[JasonsLabVideos]

Id love a Netgate 6100 But they are soooo pricy ! And its not upgradable & they are just Atom quad cores. Dream firewall would be the Supermicro Xeon-d with 32 gigs ram and sfp+ ports.

[ClaraIda-xe]

Johnson Timothy Johnson Margaret Young George