Suggestions for low-power gigE firewall?

[Artem Belevich]

On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 5:17 AM, Chris Nehren
<cnehren+freebsd-stable at pobox.com> wrote:
> Speaking of Soekris elsethread, I'm presently interested in
> picking up a small device to use as a router + firewall for my
> home network.  I initially looked at what Soekris has to offer,
> of course, but they only have 4xgigE products (the net650x line).
> I don't need that many ports, but they don't offer anything that
> has just 2xgigE.  I'd like something smaller than the net650x
> line[0], preferably similarly low power.
>
> The box will run pf, some form of local name resolution for the
> network, a RADIUS server for my wifi AP, and openvpn.  It'd be
> helpful if the NICs and drivers support VLANs.
>
> Any suggestions?

ALIX apu1c may be an alternative:
http://www.pcengines.ch/apu.htm

The board is a bit cheaper - $145/$160, according to
http://www.pcengines.ch/order1.php?c=4
The downside is that it's got Realtek RTL8111E NICs.

Or you can try Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite --
http://www.ubnt.com/edgemax#edge-router-lite
The downside is that it's not a Tier-1 platform (mips). The hardware
under the hood is capable of a lot more than you could achieve on any
other box at that price point. If you can live with stock software or
willing to deal with rough edges of a new platform, this may work,
too.


--Artem

>
> [0]: If I was going to spend 400+ USD on a machine, I may as well
> pick up a used Dell or something and toss some em(4)s in it.
>
> --
> Chris Nehren