Pfsense vs ubiquity

key to pfsense is having something that's got minimum dual intel NICs, low power and cheap which is hard to find it seems!

we use pfsense VMs at work and i use a ER-L at home, really like both, i think pfsense is a little easier to use though

if i find decent priced hardware use il try pfsense at home one day
 
I was going to use an old N40L which was running ESXI. It’s got a dual NIC, 16Gb RAM and 4x3TB so seemed a complete waste.

My work (global business) is actually looking to move from Cisco to ubiquiti so they’re doing something right.
 
IME anything other than Cisco or Juniper in larger networks tends to not fare so well. Having run a Ubiquiti router at home, I wouldn't recommend them in a corporate environment. I haven't used their switches though. AP wise I understand they are very good for the money.
 
I think this will be just for the APs in offices, don’t have a clue what is in our data centres but I doubt we will be swapping out that kit unless it’s reslly old.
 
I don't understand the Ubiquiti obsession that seems to exist across the computer enthusiast demographic. Have they just done a good job of getting it into the hands of popular YouTube video producers? Does it get a lot of praise simply because people don't expect things to work properly at that price point?

It's worth what it costs, don't get me wrong - I'm just not sure people should aspire to have an Ubiquiti-everywhere network in the way that seems fairly common. There's much better switches available for not a huge amount more cash, the UniFi controller interface really doesn't lend itself to setting up something with as many options as a router does, and the USG range is massively crippled because of it. The only stuff they make that would ever be my go-to is the point-to-point wireless gear, which is legitimately excellent.
 
Caged said:
I don't understand the Ubiquiti obsession that seems to exist across the computer enthusiast demographic. Have they just done a good job of getting it into the hands of popular YouTube video producers? Does it get a lot of praise simply because people don't expect things to work properly at that price point?

It's worth what it costs, don't get me wrong - I'm just not sure people should aspire to have an Ubiquiti-everywhere network in the way that seems fairly common. There's much better switches available for not a huge amount more cash, the UniFi controller interface really doesn't lend itself to setting up something with as many options as a router does, and the USG range is massively crippled because of it. The only stuff they make that would ever be my go-to is the point-to-point wireless gear, which is legitimately excellent.
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Probably same reason people buy Apple. I like the kit and don’t find it over priced. I am getting better performance on a AP that cost £120 (probably could have gone cheaper if didn’t get the pro) compared to the £90 AP I originally had
 
With regards to running pfSense, I highly recommend 'stubbing' both the WAN and LAN adapters from unRaid so that pfSense has exclusive access to them.
 
lmfy2k said:
key to pfsense is having something that's got minimum dual intel NICs, low power and cheap which is hard to find it seems!

we use pfsense VMs at work and i use a ER-L at home, really like both, i think pfsense is a little easier to use though

if i find decent priced hardware use il try pfsense at home one day
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I grabbed a little PC Engines APU2C4 and case, which is about the size of a normal desktop switch. It has a 1GHz quad core AMD Jaguar CPU with 4GB DDR3 RAM, three Intel NICs, two miniPCI-e slots (one has a SIM slot), and takes mSATA SSDs or SDCards onboard. It runs video out over serial, but a null modem to USB cable (you can buy the two leads on eBay for a pound or so) work perfectly on Windows 10.

It runs pfSense easily on our 200/20 cable connection and handles LAN transfers seamlessly. I got an mine ready built from a German eBay seller (the board in a case, etc) with IPFire pre-installed on an SD card for £150 iirc. If you search APU2C4 on there you'll find them at the top of the results. It's pennies for what turned into a very capable, 6 to 12 watt firewall and router that barely breaks 5% CPU usage. There are some tweaks for the Intel NICS and SSD if you get one, just Google it. If you get the German pre-assembled unit you'll need a cheap plug converter (EU to UK) as well but the box really is good. :)
 
Rainmaker said:
I grabbed a little PC Engines APU2C4 and case, which is about the size of a normal desktop switch. It has a 1GHz quad core AMD Jaguar CPU with 4GB DDR3 RAM, three Intel NICs, two miniPCI-e slots (one has a SIM slot), and takes mSATA SSDs or SDCards onboard. It runs video out over serial, but a null modem to USB cable (you can buy the two leads on eBay for a pound or so) work perfectly on Windows 10.

It runs pfSense easily on our 200/20 cable connection and handles LAN transfers seamlessly. I got an mine ready built from a German eBay seller (the board in a case, etc) with IPFire pre-installed on an SD card for £150 iirc. If you search APU2C4 on there you'll find them at the top of the results. It's pennies for what turned into a very capable, 6 to 12 watt firewall and router that barely breaks 5% CPU usage. There are some tweaks for the Intel NICS and SSD if you get one, just Google it. If you get the German pre-assembled unit you'll need a cheap plug converter (EU to UK) as well but the box really is good. :)
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Thanks for the info mate, il check it out

does is support AES-NI aswell?

EDIT just seen it does, nice :)
 
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just a note, PFsense will be dropping nanoBSD and i386 version.
so going forward will only be x64 version.

that APU2C4 does seem to have an internal storage slot so won't be able to run pfsense in the future. or at least the latest ones.

edit, the board does say msata support but from the image can't seems to see any slots that resembles msata
 
yes you are right, found it and seen a pic of msata plugged in. looks like the right gear for pfsense box.

3 lan slots are bonus and they are all intel as well.
 
pc-guy said:
yes you are right, found it and seen a pic of msata plugged in. looks like the right gear for pfsense box.

3 lan slots are bonus and they are all intel as well.
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I did tell you it had mSATA in my post - I own one and run pfSense from an mSATA drive on it. :p It's a nice little box indeed. Low powered, fast, silent, supports AES-NI, Intel NICs... Perfect really.
 
Considering the price of the USG, I'd take the German PC Engines option any day. In fact I might do just that.
 
Caged said:
Considering the price of the USG, I'd take the German PC Engines option any day. In fact I might do just that.
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If you do, grab a cheap mSATA drive (I got a 30GB and use about 1GB of it lol) and hit me up in Trust. I'll send you a brief list of instructions on how to tweak pfSense to add a license file for the Intel NICs and set up the system to use the SSD properly. It only takes a minute once pfSense is installed. It's very simple - four screws, pop off the case lid, slot in mSATA, and boot over a serial null modem (or serial null modem to USB) cable using Putty. I love it.
 
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