Suitable OPNsense mini server ?

[zMaliz]

Hi,
I'm about to move to a UK FTTP 900 Mbps service and was thinking of purchasing this:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004360072281.html

I'll either buy barebones and add ram / SSD or buy it with 16GB & 128GB SSD.

My current OPNsense is pretty simple, IPV4 DHCP Server, 1 x IPsec VPN, 1 x Wireguard VPN.
Along with UnboundDNS, UDP Broadcast Relay and some traffic reporting.

It will only be used of OPNsense, will this be suitable and will it be support the full speed of the connection via PPPOE ?
Ideally I'd like to run bare metal and not via Proxmox as I've no experience of this.

Thanks

 

[kapone]

Why are we suddenly getting all these new posters…with the first thing they do is…post a link to a Chinese product on a Chinese site?

 

[louie1961]

I use an N100 cpu based unit that is very similar to that and have no complaints. I run pfSense, not OPNsense, but I am sure the performance will be fine.

 

[zMaliz]

Why are we suddenly getting all these new posters…with the first thing they do is…post a link to a Chinese product on a Chinese site?

I'm posting because I'd like to know if this will work or not for my requirements.
Thanks

 

[zMaliz]

I use an N100 cpu based unit that is very similar to that and have no complaints. I run pfSense, not OPNsense, but I am sure the performance will be fine.

Great thanks.
Is that bare metal ? are you using PPPOE and what speed is your connection ?

Thanks

 

[louie1961]

It is bare metal. I am running two/redundant WAN connections. One is 5G (T-mobile) and the other is cable internet Both at 700mbps. I run Tailscale as my VPN, I have 7 VLANs, and 4 Cloudflare tunnels. I am hosting 2 Wordpress websites here in my home lab, plus 2 instances of Nextcloud. I have about 40 devices connected to the network, including IOT devices, PCs, Proxmox hosts, NAS servers, televisions, etc. I am also running my own DNS server, and internet filtering. The N100 CPU never really goes above 5-10%

 

[zMaliz]

It is bare metal. I am running two/redundant WAN connections. One is 5G (T-mobile) and the other is cable internet Both at 700mbps. I run Tailscale as my VPN, I have 7 VLANs, and 4 Cloudflare tunnels. I am hosting 2 Wordpress websites here in my home lab, plus 2 instances of Nextcloud. I have about 40 devices connected to the network, including IOT devices, PCs, Proxmox hosts, NAS servers, televisions, etc. I am also running my own DNS server, and internet filtering. The N100 CPU never really goes above 5-10%

Thanks
Sounds like it should handle my 'simple' needs @ 900Mbps.

 

[Greg_E]

N5105 would also handle it, might be cheaper but I think it might draw more power too.

Looking at the prices, I might be tempted to get the 8gb ram and 128gb drive, but I'm a little worried about the quality of those components vs other name brands. I like 16gb in OPNsense if you are running anything like Zenarmor, IPS, Crowdsec, other 8gb is probably enough.

 

[zMaliz]

N5105 would also handle it, might be cheaper but I think it might draw more power too.

Looking at the prices, I might be tempted to get the 8gb ram and 128gb drive, but I'm a little worried about the quality of those components vs other name brands. I like 16gb in OPNsense if you are running anything like Zenarmor, IPS, Crowdsec, other 8gb is probably enough.

I plan to buy a barebone system and get the ram and SSD locally. This is what I'm looking at https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004360072281.html

Hopefully this will work ok ?
Thanks

 

[Greg_E]

A lot of people on the OPNsense forum are using a similar device. There are some oddities with the i226 interfaces depending on the hardware/firmware version, best to look on the OPNsense forum for that info because I think they are specific to BSD and the OPNsense changes.