via C7 as a network router

So I was looking at these Jetway boards http://www.mini-itx.com/store/?c=2#j7f2

I want to build a low powered network router, with wireless. These boards seem perfect because you can add a module to get 4 gigabit ports and then use the pci slot to add a wireless card.

So anyway I was looking at the cpu options and we have
1.2Ghz Eden Fanless
1.5Ghz
2.0Ghz

I would really like to go with the 1.2 Eden as it will give the most power savings but I am a little worried. Does anyone here know if the eden would be able to handle 4 gigabit ports, wireless, and routeing/firewall?

I have looked around google and have not found any good reviews or tests. I don't want to buy the eden and find out it is not powerful enough.

You really don't need very much for a router/firewall. It really depends on what software you'll be running to be honest.

Most wireless/gigabit routers you will find these days have sub 500mhz processors in them, and contain around 32mb of ram.

"You really don't need very much for a router/firewall. It really depends on what software you'll be running to be honest."

Exactly. With 1ghz or more to spare on CPU, you won't even need that efficient an installation, and you can start handing it more tasks, such as making it an NTP server as well :P

The 1.2 looks to be the only fanless model too. Try to stay away from fans if at all possible, and design/have a case with plenty of ventilation.

Yeah, Smoothwall 3.0 SP1's system specs (I'm assuming you'll be using Smoothwall for this) aren't that big either:

http://internap.dl.sourceforge.net/s...tall-guide.pdf

Processor: Intel Pentium 200 MHz or compatible processors.

Memory: 128 MB of RAM. More RAM is required for additional services.

Storage: 2 GB hard disk – IDE and SCSI devices supported.

NICs: A minimum of one supported.

If the connection to the Internet is via a broadband device such as a
cable modem, ethernet-presented ADSL, or another ethernet-presented
connection, you will need a second NIC.

Keyboard: If the system BIOS supports boot without keyboard, this is only
required for the initial installation.

Video Card: Only required when installing SmoothWall Express.

Monitor: Only required when installing SmoothWall Express.

CD-ROM: Only required when installing SmoothWall Express.

---

1.2 GHz and the 1GB of memory that board supports is more than enough (probably overkill actually).

Originally Posted by kharan5876

I have looked around google and have not found any good reviews or tests. I don't want to buy the eden and find out it is not powerful enough.

I think it just depends on your needs. I was in the same boat and decided to build a router that used a m-atx board, 1.2ghz celeron processor and intel gb nics. We went this direction because we wanted to use commodity hardware that is readily available and didn't care to fit all the components into a 1U form factor. PFsense has worked out great but we did find that the snort module really gobbled up ram. We have never had issues with cpu load.

I use one of those boards with a 2.0ghz C7 and it works well enough. Have it running M0n0wall as a wireless AP and a router. Only complaint is that the processor, even at 2.0 ghz, isn't powerful enough for anywhere close to gigabit speeds.

Originally Posted by Tekara

I use one of those boards with a 2.0ghz C7 and it works well enough. Have it running M0n0wall as a wireless AP and a router. Only complaint is that the processor, even at 2.0 ghz, isn't powerful enough for anywhere close to gigabit speeds.

What kind of NICs? If you grab a dual port gigabit intel controller it should have TCP offloading and outta reduce the overhead alot. I have 2 10/100 onboard intel and a dual port PCI 10/100 intel card and my CPU usage rarely ever goes over 30-40% on a celeron 733mhz when I max my connection. I just grabbed 2 of those dual gb NICs the other day for $20 each PCI-X though.

Running PFsense on a M10000 with 512mgs right now. Works great.

Originally Posted by OmegaAvenger

What kind of NICs? If you grab a dual port gigabit intel controller it should have TCP offloading and outta reduce the overhead alot. I have 2 10/100 onboard intel and a dual port PCI 10/100 intel card and my CPU usage rarely ever goes over 30-40% on a celeron 733mhz when I max my connection. I just grabbed 2 of those dual gb NICs the other day for $20 each PCI-X though.

I use a 3-port 10/100/1000 riser card that Jetway makes for that particular motherboard. The only PCI slot is used for the wireless card, so I wouldn't be able to make use of that setup. The box is able to max a 100mbit connection without issue, so it's not a big concern to me. However, it may be to the OP whom looks to be considering a setup nearly like mine.

Originally Posted by Tekara

I use a 3-port 10/100/1000 riser card that Jetway makes for that particular motherboard. The only PCI slot is used for the wireless card, so I wouldn't be able to make use of that setup. The box is able to max a 100mbit connection without issue, so it's not a big concern to me. However, it may be to the OP whom looks to be considering a setup nearly like mine.

aaah... so wait you have a 100mbit internet connection? or are you routing between seperate networks all connected to the router?

Originally Posted by OmegaAvenger

aaah... so wait you have a 100mbit internet connection? or are you routing between seperate networks all connected to the router?

Heh, don't I wish I lived in Japan. No, it is indeed separate networks connected to the router. It all works out rather nicely, the network card built into the motherboard is only 10/100, so the WAN is connected to that. Then the three gigabit ports are used for routing between the different networks. I segregate the computers into 3 networks: Wireless, LAN and my "server." This is where m0n0wall shines, allowing me to control how the networks talk to each other.

Originally Posted by Tekara

Heh, don't I wish I lived in Japan. No, it is indeed separate networks connected to the router. It all works out rather nicely, the network card built into the motherboard is only 10/100, so the WAN is connected to that. Then the three gigabit ports are used for routing between the different networks. I segregate the computers into 3 networks: Wireless, LAN and my "server." This is where m0n0wall shines, allowing me to control how the networks talk to each other.

aah, my friend has his similar. LAN, WLAN, and WAN. He also has a captive portal on his WLAN for shens.

I use openbsd/pf & it probably eats 32M ram and 2G of disk space (assuming you have /usr/src on the local machine and compile your own patches from the errata page). On both a C3 and a pentium pro 200, it was entirely idle.

I took down both those boxes as they were too power hungry and way too idle & made an openbsd pf firewall in a vm on "proxmox ve". Works great & my lan is now eating less power I plan to create 2 more nodes for realtime failover. It is actually pretty sweet how it works & not too hard to setup either.

Less power = less cooling = more UPS battery time & cheaper electrical bill.

I've been running a C7 1500mhz m0n0wall

IMO, I would look for a used Via C7 Everex PC and build it off that.