Re: [PLUG] Cheap Firewall - Use old Wireless Router?

[Casey Bralla <MailList@NerdWorld.org>]

I have been using an old COTS system (Pentium 5 vintage) with 3 NICs
running Shorewall on Debian.   Except for the energy use, it's been great.

What do you think about using a COTS wireless router with gigabit
ethernet as a firewall?  All I need is NAT provided by the router.  I'd
disable the wireless, and NAT would insulate the local net from the
internet.   I'd plug the "WAN" plug into the verizon-supplied cable
modem.  Most wireless routers have 4 gigabit ports, although I'd only
need 1 of them.  The old router would provide dhcp addresses on the
local net.

Do you think this would be robust enough to provide thruput on par with
the low cost commercial routers already mentioned by others on this list?


On 06/03/2018 08:10 PM, Steve Litt wrote:
> On Tue, 29 May 2018 19:01:56 -0400
> Tone Montone <tonemontone@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Lee,
>>
>>    You have hit on a project I've been looking at for the past
>> month.  I never used FreeBDS before and was looking at picking up a
>> cheap PC from craigslist, with a CPU that was AES-NI friendly, and
>> then install pfsense on it.  I also thought about adding snort and
>> Splunk as well to gain some insight into those tools as well.
> If you're looking for cheap today, dumpster dive an eight year old COTS
> computer and two or three cheap Gigabit NICS, and run pfSense. That's
> what I do right now.
>
> But a full sized desktop burns a lot of electricity, and if your're in
> a warm climate, it double-whammys you because you need to use even more
> electricity to air condition away the heat from the processor.
>
> I've been thinking of spending $400 for a very low power (perhaps
> fanless) computer capable of running 3 NICs, and putting pfSense on it.
> $400 today, but I probably earn back a buck a day.
>  
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt 
> June 2018 featured book: Twenty Eight Tales of Troubleshooting
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/28
>
>
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-- 

Casey Bralla

___________________________________________________________________________
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