The rest of the story (what is everyone using for routers, switches, firewalls, etc?)

[NorCalTechSupport]

Mikrotik routers that have firewall functionality built in. Then for switches we are very HP centric and I use a lot of HP Pro Curve PoE+ 24 port and 48 port models. When we just need a port or two we get the HP 2530 as it has Gb & PoE built in.

 

[Spearfoot]

Peplink Balance 20 dual-WAN router+firewall+4-port gigabit switch
Motorola NVG-589 (AT&T Uverse, gateway+router+firewall+wireless-N AP+4-port gigabit switch)
Motorola SB-6121 (Comcast Xfinity, cablemodem)
Netgear GS108Tv2 managed switch (8 gigabit ports)
Dell 2816 managed switch (16 gigabit ports)
Various Netgear 8 and 5 port gigabit switches
Linksys 4-port 100Mb/s switch
2 x Linksys WAP54G AP's for wireless-G only

 

[DaveF81]

Attached is a picture from my utility closet. It's not much to look at.

Recently switched out my Mini-ITX system running pfSense for a Ubiquiti EdgeMax EdgeRouter PoE (top right). Pretty much replicated the entire configuration from pfSense, complete with two outbound OpenVPN via Private Internet Access using policy based routing. A little disappointed with the OpenVPN performance, since crypto acceleration for OpenVPN is not supported right now, should I be using IPSec, it'll be a whole different story.

Rest of the equipment is a Thomson DCM475 cable modem (top left), D-Link DGS-1100-08 8-port smart switch (bottom left) mostly use for port trunking and a couple of VLANs (will replace this for something better in the near future). Not pictured is the Ubiquiti UniFi AP, being powered by the EdgeRouter.

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

My networking closet consists of...
* modem is a Zoom 5341j
* router is a C2558 running pfsense
* 2 unmanaged 8 port switches
* wireless access point is a Nighthawk R7000 running dd-wrt
* also got my freenas, freebsd webserver, 3 UPSs, and a Keyboard-Video setup in case I need to troubleshoot a server

https://m.youtube.com/?#/watch?v=Ujekt6lFXjM

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

Attached is a picture from my utility closet. It's not much to look at.

Recently switched out my Mini-ITX system running pfSense for a Ubiquiti EdgeMax EdgeRouter PoE (top right). Pretty much replicated the entire configuration from pfSense, complete with two outbound OpenVPN via Private Internet Access using policy based routing. A little disappointed with the OpenVPN performance, since crypto acceleration for OpenVPN is not supported right now, should I be using IPSec, it'll be a whole different story.

Rest of the equipment is a Thomson DCM475 cable modem (top left), D-Link DGS-1100-08 8-port smart switch (bottom left) mostly use for port trunking and a couple of VLANs (will replace this for something better in the near future). Not pictured is the Ubiquiti UniFi AP, being powered by the EdgeRouter.

are you sure OpenVPN isn't accelerated with aes-ni? this doc page seems to say otherwise https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Are_cryptographic_accelerators_supported
maybe you didn't choose a supported cipher?

 

[hugovsky]

are you sure OpenVPN isn't accelerated with aes-ni? this doc page seems to say otherwise https://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Are_cryptographic_accelerators_supported
maybe you didn't choose a supported cipher?

He's using the edgeRouter from Ubiquiti, not pfSense.

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

He's using the edgeRouter from Ubiquiti, not pfSense.

ahh, for some reason I lost the context when I read this. was reading it way too late, lol

 

[TheDubiousDubber]

I'm a bit of a newb here. I currently have a TP-Link Archer C7 flashed with latest DD-WRT firmware. I have my Xbox and my FreeNAS box hardwired directly to the router and all other devices are wireless so no need for any switches. It's interesting hearing about all these crazy setups. I imagine the switches are for those who have a multitude of wired devices, but what is the point of having a pfSense box? Obviously you have a lot of capabilities with it, but what advantage does it have over a nice router with custom firmware, especially when using a wireless router as an AP?

 

[Jailer]

I'm a bit of a newb here. I currently have a TP-Link Archer C7 flashed with latest DD-WRT firmware. I have my Xbox and my FreeNAS box hardwired directly to the router and all other devices are wireless so no need for any switches. It's interesting hearing about all these crazy setups. I imagine the switches are for those who have a multitude of wired devices, but what is the point of having a pfSense box? Obviously you have a lot of capabilities with it, but what advantage does it have over a nice router with custom firmware, especially when using a wireless router as an AP?

Packages to expand the usage beyond just a router/firewall. That and the ability to easily pass all those packets for those who have access to really fast internet as long as the hardware it's installed on is up to the task.

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

I'm a bit of a newb here. I currently have a TP-Link Archer C7 flashed with latest DD-WRT firmware. I have my Xbox and my FreeNAS box hardwired directly to the router and all other devices are wireless so no need for any switches. It's interesting hearing about all these crazy setups. I imagine the switches are for those who have a multitude of wired devices, but what is the point of having a pfSense box? Obviously you have a lot of capabilities with it, but what advantage does it have over a nice router with custom firmware, especially when using a wireless router as an AP?

for my house where I run some external services, I use it as my SSL terminator (HAProxy) and caching reverse-proxy (Varnish). It handles SSL connections, gzipping, and static asset caching, then passes HTTP requests to my webserver.

At some of my family members homes, where they only have a single server, I have pfsense with a jail for downloading their TV shows/media. I could have just as well had dd-wrt as the router and instead had freenas on the network, but this setup has been super stable, and that's my main goal when managing it from an hour drive away.

 

[TheDubiousDubber]

Packages to expand the usage beyond just a router/firewall. That and the ability to easily pass all those packets for those who have access to really fast internet as long as the hardware it's installed on is up to the task.

I just found the doc listing a lot of the features/packages. That's a bit much for me. I'm sure that will change as I learn more, but dang. I'm hardly using all the features on my router, I can't imagine making use of many of these not to mention having to add a new piece of hardware to the mix.

 

[TheDubiousDubber]

for my house where I run some external services, I use it as my SSL terminator (HAProxy) and caching reverse-proxy (Varnish). It handles SSL connections, gzipping, and static asset caching, then passes HTTP requests to my webserver.

At some of my family members homes, where they only have a single server, I have pfsense with a jail for downloading their TV shows/media. I could have just as well had dd-wrt as the router and instead had freenas on the network, but this setup has been super stable, and that's my main goal when managing it from an hour drive away.

I think I understood about 20% of that.

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

I think I understood about 20% of that.

you probably don't need it then, lol

 

[Jailer]

I just found the doc listing a lot of the features/packages. That's a bit much for me. I'm sure that will change as I learn more, but dang. I'm hardly using all the features on my router, I can't imagine making use of many of these not to mention having to add a new piece of hardware to the mix.

The hardware requirements for pfsense aren't that steep unless you have something like GB internet. I'm running mine on a 13 year old P4 rig that was decommissioned so it didn't cost me a thing. I'm also running with Snort and PFblockerNG installed and it doesn't even break a sweat with my lowly 4.5/1.2 connection.

 

[hugovsky]

I use pfSense for ipsec in, 2 openvpn out, snort, dns ads block and 2 wan. And because it's also rock solid and stable.

 

[TheDubiousDubber]

Sounds like I need to do some more learning to see what I can make use of or if it is even worth the effort for me. Thanks for the input.