Firewall recommendations

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Peanuthead

Active Member
Jun 12, 2015
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I presently have a Netgear that is on the US-CERT list. In short, I have been looking at rolling out Sophos Home UTM but just read they dropped the IPs from 50 to 25. Not too good in my case. Looking for some firewall recommendations for home. I've been a big fan of Untangle in the past but they are neutered it to pieces. I know there is PFSense but I am not in a position to learn a new firewall setup all over again. (I am partially familiar with Sophos). I also felt it was a little clunky. Thoughts or suggestions?
 

pricklypunter

Well-Known Member
Nov 10, 2015
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Canada
No pain, no gain, pfSense is about as good as it gets :)

That said, there are some alternatives, like Endian Firewall, OPNsense, IPfire, IPcop etc
 

Peanuthead

Active Member
Jun 12, 2015
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I am fine with either. I prefer little maintenance as this is a home. I'm not looking to extend my job duties from work into home. I'd prefer to have inline AV scanning, IPS/IDS, etc. Sophos fits the bill exactly sans the IP limit. Hardware is a non-issue as I have a ton of it. Software cost - reasonably priced is fine. The WAF will be dependent.
 

Patrick

Administrator
Staff member
Dec 21, 2010
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I think the low-end Sophos appliances are only a few hundred dollars? I mean, if you do not want to learn something new.
 

T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
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USB Adapter work @whitey ? I just got a couple to have on hand for when I didn't have any ports (ie: surface)
 

whitey

Moderator
Jun 30, 2014
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Sure an OTA usb wifi dongle could solve this but no official pfSense support/image as far as I am aware. I could roll my own iptables/masquerading rulesets FW but I left that dark world LONG ago :-D
 

zer0sum

Well-Known Member
Mar 8, 2013
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I just switched to a Ubiquiti EdgeRouter ER-X-SFP that only cost US$75 and is tiny and very full featured.

The great thing is you can get up and running easily using the GUI, but can also get under the hood and unleash a lot of advanced functionality when/if you truly need it later on.

Here's a decent review
 
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Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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I have been looking at rolling out Sophos Home UTM but just read they dropped the IPs from 50 to 25.
Have not been able to find that?

The "UTM Free" webpage @sophos currently still shows 50 free IPs...
 
Last edited:

Tyrant82

New Member
Oct 11, 2011
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Have not been able to find that?

The "UTM Free" webpage @sophos currently still shows 50 free IPs...
I hope they dont change that now because i wanted Sophos in terms of easy usability for a first time user... that would be a bummer :(
 

NashBrydges

Member
Apr 30, 2015
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I presently have a Netgear that is on the US-CERT list. In short, I have been looking at rolling out Sophos Home UTM but just read they dropped the IPs from 50 to 25. Not too good in my case. Looking for some firewall recommendations for home. I've been a big fan of Untangle in the past but they are neutered it to pieces. I know there is PFSense but I am not in a position to learn a new firewall setup all over again. (I am partially familiar with Sophos). I also felt it was a little clunky. Thoughts or suggestions?
Where did you read about Sophos dropping the IPs on their Home version? This still shows 50 IPs for the UTM and if you go with the XG version, there are NO IP restrictions. Only hardware restrictions as have already been listed. I'm running the Sophos Home UTM in HA mode at home with 35-45 IPs in use (depending on the day)

Free Home Edition Firewall - UTM Home | Sophos Free Tools

Free Firewall for Home Users | Free Home Security Appliance Download | Sophos XG Firewall
 

Peanuthead

Active Member
Jun 12, 2015
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I'll have to find that again. I also planned on running in HA mode just so I don't have a call from my family while I am on the road for work about Internet not being up due to some VM issue.
 

Rand__

Well-Known Member
Mar 6, 2014
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So (Sophos) HA works fine for you?
Will have to give that a stab again - I had trouble with the two VMs not being able to see each other and not syncing up.
Or are you using VMWare HA? (thats what I did but in the long run the native HA would be cleaner)
 

halfelite

Member
Oct 10, 2014
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I started out with Sophos UTM. But learned a valuable lesson. If you are a gamer with multiple game consoles its impossible to get Sophos UTM to work as you cant setup port forwarding to work correctly with the game consoles. I went back to pfsense and allowing the game consoles only to open UPNP connections.
 

Evan

Well-Known Member
Jan 6, 2016
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I have been using UBNT ERL3 on 1G up/down fiber and it works great for basic firewall and routing. It's cheap and Low power. (I use Apple airport's for wifi)
Having said that thinking to look at pfsense (virtual) for more features.