Home VPN, PiHole - smal desktop or Pi?

SurreyNorthern · 19 Jul 2020 at 11:10

Hi all,

I currently run a HP Desktop SFF 6300 which is running purely as OpenVPN server.

This is of course linked to a port forward from my router, and the router has a DDNS setup on No-IP

The desktop is probably overkill for what it is being used for (and rather bulky) and I am thinking of a Pi running as the VPN server (and probably Wireguard at that, rather than CPU hungry OpenVPN) plus PiHole instead of on the aforementioned HP desktop.

What is the recommended setup from learned members? Is the Pi the best way to go?

Biz.Kid09 · 19 Jul 2020 at 20:31

Pi is perfect for that, I use it for PiHole and WireGuard.No issues at all.

neepheid · 20 Jul 2020 at 11:19

Same, using a Pi 3B for PiHole with no issues. Here's mine in the corner of the window, taking up next to no room

SurreyNorthern · 21 Jul 2020 at 11:07

Biz.Kid09 said:
Pi is perfect for that, I use it for PiHole and WireGuard.No issues at all.

Thanks for the confirmation.... presumably a 4GB PI4 is overkill and I'd be perfectly ok with a 2GB Pi4?

Biz.Kid09 · 21 Jul 2020 at 12:40

SurreyNorthern said:
Thanks for the confirmation.... presumably a 4GB PI4 is overkill and I'd be perfectly ok with a 2GB Pi4?

Does "overkill" exist

4gb definitely gives you more flexibility in the future, run Docker on it and can run a few other cool projects.

Oh Ed not again. · 21 Jul 2020 at 13:12

Install ESX or ProxMox on your desktop. Doesn't get around the size issues admittedly, but gives you a load more flexibility.

Virtualise Pihole, VPN (StrongSwan would be my recommendation) then use the rest of the desktop's capacity for other VMs as you need them.

Plex, Docker host, etc.

Armageus · 21 Jul 2020 at 13:27

randal said:
Install ESX or ProxMox on your desktop. Doesn't get around the size issues admittedly, but gives you a load more flexibility.

Virtualise Pihole, VPN (StrongSwan would be my recommendation) then use the rest of the desktop's capacity for other VMs as you need them.

Plex, Docker host, etc.

+1 - OP - you already have the hardware, and other than size there isn't really any obvious disadvantage vs a pi.
Power consumption will be more than a Pi, but with power saving options turned on in the BIOS etc, will be no more than around 30W I would imagine, and will deliver a lot more performance than a Pi if required.

The 6300 SFF can take PCI-E cards (e.g. additional or dual port network card), and at least a couple of hard drives, as well as up to 32GB of ram, so could easily host plenty of VM's including e.g. a PFSense/OPNSense/Untangle router, a Veeam backup instance, as well as the other things previously mentioned.

Spec:
https://support.hp.com/gb-en/document/c03387773

overcooled-xp · 8 Aug 2020 at 21:20

Pi is definitely better for this as it will use less power. I have a Pi 2 and I run Pi-Hole & PiVPN on mine.

jokerguv · 12 Aug 2020 at 13:01

One thing to note with the Pi is that only Pi 4 has a gigabit LAN port and the rest have 100Mb.

This means that in case you internet upload speed exceeds 100Mb but your Pi is connected with its 100MB LAN port, you'd be bottlenecked by the Pi when transferring files over PiVPN or Wireguard. Though if like me your internet speed doesn't exceed 100Mb then you'd be fine. I'm using PiHole + PiVPN (Wireguard protocol) on Pi 2 B+, runs absolutely fine.

Also you could use a USB gigabit LAN adapter instead of using the 100MB LAN port of the Pi, that'd get you to ~200Mb, but really if I was buying today I'd just go with the Pi 4.