Reddit reviews Jetway Intel Celeron N2930 Quad Core Dual Intel LAN Fanless - HBJC311U93W-2930-B

This is what I'm using for pfSense.

It's actually a really awesome little machine, I'll be ordering more for sure.

You can still use your OpenWRT box as a wifi access point behind the firewall.

You'll want a decent switch to hook it all together.

Anyone have an opinion on the homebrew pc used in this article?

$165 after shipping
http://www.aliexpress.com/item/2014-NEW-Intel-Celeron-C1037U-aluminum-fanless-dual-core-living-room-HTPC-Barebone-Mini-PC-with/1638834276.html

vs.

$210 - Jetway
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OY8Q0QC/ref=s9_wsim_gw_g147_i1_r?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=desktop-5&pf_rd_r=0CP9Z4MH9MR9H0DQRTN0&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=2090149322&pf_rd_i=desktop

I didn't find a minipc that could do 16GB, but https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OY8Q0QC/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o08_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 is fanless, dual Intel NIC and can run 8GB. I've been running PfSense on it nonstop for a couple months now.

This is what I use. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OY8Q0QC?keywords=pfsense&qid=1450107027&ref_=sr_1_16&sr=8-16

Just add cheap ram and a msata chip. Go ahead and remove the wireless card while you're in there. You don't need much storage, you should setup a log server on your lab.

Edit: Dual Intel NIC and very low power consumption.

There are two that I know of:

• Logic supply ($500+)
  
  
• JBC ($230 on Amazon)

If you are honestly thinking of getting that Netgear firewall thing (waste of money) look into either building a cheap PC with dual intel NIC or getting one of these:

https://www.amazon.com/Jetway-Intel-Celeron-N2930-Fanless/dp/B00OY8Q0QC/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1466599806&sr=1-1&keywords=jetway

You can then use your 1900AC as your WiFi AP and setup pfSense on that machine to do your routing, firewalling, and run Snort for intrusion prevention on your DMZ'd device. (Basic packages like emerging threats, known compromised)

Really though, once you forward a port an IPS may block some IPs, but they will still find a way to connect to your services to get in. If you don't have protection in the app, or on the server like a fail2ban you are leaving yourself somewhat vulnerable. At least if the machine is DMZ'd it makes it harder for them to compromise the rest of your network.

You could also virtualize the OS on your machine, run something like proxmox or ESXi and run a virtualized version of pfSense on that machine and have all your VMs route through that. Would take quite a bit of work and would definitely be a learning experience for you lol

So many questions.

> My home LAN right now is an Asus RT-AC66U, 2 desktops, printer, and my freenas Bound together by 2Gb 8 port switches. I also just built a little ESX server. I wanted to virtualize server OSs, and manage a small domain environment. I also wanted to keep it mostly separate from normal my LAN.

Presumably that link bonding is client side? What switch is it?

> I don't know how to go about doing this. I think this is a situation where a vlan and pfsense are used. I want to be able to control my vms from my primary desktop I also want my Vms to be able to reach the internet.

VLANs allow you to have different networks over the same physical. For example, you could have two VLANs running down the same cable back to your router and your router has two interfaces, each listening for their respective VLAN tags. You can then add firewall rules to each interface as if it were a physical NIC but it's all software.

What you're after is subnets on top of VLANs. Just have your VMs on a different subnet to your main network and traffic between them will have to be routed (by your router) so you get firewall rules etc.

Having the VMs able to reach the internet is as simple as giving them a route to do so.
> Will i need to add a 2nd NIC to my desktop to access two networks?

No. Unless you want direct access to your VM subnet by having an IP within their range, access from your desktop will be just as it is with any other IP. It'll get routed to the correct location by your router.
> pfsense needs dedicated hardware right? is this good enough http://amzn.com/B00OY8Q0QC[1]

Not necessarily. I've seen many on here running it virtualised but there are those who prefer to run something like that as a dedicated machine. As for hardware, unless you have 500Mbps+, you won't need anything that expensive. If you have an old machine, those can often work just fine for a home connection. For reference, I have a Pentium G3220 with 4GB DDR3 RAM which handles by 1Gbps FTTH connection with room to breathe.
> I will need to buy a smart switch right? Any tips on how to shop for one? I dont really know what to look for.

Why? Most dumb switches will handle VLAN tags just fine. However, if you want to do it like enterprise does, you'll want a managed/smart switch. They will allow you to do VLAN tagging at the switch side so no extra client configuration is needed.
> I'm using the trial version of Vmware stuff. So i have a about a 60 day window. Should i make the switch early Proxmox? Which is worth more professional development wise?

I'm fairly sure ESXi is free. The management program is paid but the free version of it should do everything you want.
> Bonus objective: I sold my HTPC to afford most of this hardware. Is there a way I can connect a virtual machine to my tv to playback media? I'm using chromecast/ freenasPLex which is working fine enough. But i am curious.

Maybe but I don't think it'd be easy. You'd be better off getting something like a RaspberryPi and using rasplex with a PLEX server. That's what I do.

A CentOS 7 box (based on this), with IP masquerading - switched to it after I got tired of my fairly recent NetGear VPN firewall go bye-bye everytime it receives actual traffic.

Fanless, dual Intel NICs

I've been using these lately: http://www.amazon.com/Jetway-Intel-Celeron-N2930-Fanless/dp/B00OY8Q0QC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1452191765&sr=8-1&keywords=jetway

Amazon says they only support 4GB of RAM but per the JW website and, I can attest, you can put 8GB in.

https://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-Fanless-Graphics-Windows-ZBOX-CI325NANO-U-W2B/dp/B01MSNGYD1or https://www.amazon.com/Jetway-Intel-Celeron-N2930-Fanless/dp/B00OY8Q0QC

This is what I use for my home UTM. Runs great for my 40/5 internet connection. NOTE: this computer doesn't come with a memory or storage once I added in 4GB of memory and a 60GB MSATA SSD it was about $270 total. Edit: fixed the link and added the Note.

> https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OY8Q0QC

/u/phr0ze & /u/DerNalia

I'd avoid the JetWay; the CPU that's in this one does not have AES-NI:
https://ark.intel.com/products/81073/Intel-Celeron-Processor-N2930-2M-Cache-up-to-2_16-GHz

This will be a requirement for pfSense in the future, so it'd personally avoid it unless you want to get another device in a few years time.