Building new Untangle router - need advice, thoughts.

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Rison

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Jun 20, 2011
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Hey guys,

I'm looking at building a new router for supporting a few needs. First of all, it's going to be on 100down/10up commerical inet w/ 5 static IPs.

I need to have 3 physical networks routing through this box - which I believe i'm going with Untangle, unless someone else can recommend something better.

Currently, we're using an older HP server, with some dual core 2Ghz xeons, 1.5G ram and a bunch of PCI 100M 3com cards.. not exactly spectacular. It's peaking out at about 40Mbit through the entire connection.. which leads us to the next setup. And well, I don't know why it's throttling at 40Mbit, other than the PCI bus being overloaded, etc.

We're looking at a 1u supermicro server, a cheap little supermicro 5015A-EHF-D525, it's a dual atom 1.8Ghz and we'd throw 4G DDR2 in it, along with a Intel PRO/1000 PT Dual Port PCIe card.
With three networks (Network A, 3 heavy IT users - Network B, 15 office people - network C, 10 wireless) going through this box, do you believe it would be enough?

We have a few of the supermicro atom boxes out as untangle boxes in the field, and they perform flawlessly without issue.. but i'm wondering with the 100meg connection, if we would be ok.

Failing that, would anyone recommend another setup/gear with 4 physical network ports and NOS for around the $1k (ish, within reason) mark?

Comments and thoughts welcome.. i've just begun looking around for different configurations.
 
It's running the newest version of untangle. It has a few issues I think though, as it's not using full throughput of the internet connection (100meg cable)
Plugging a laptop direct to the internet modem will result with full speeds on speedtest. We're looking at replacing the old server anyways.
 
I would use atleast an i3 to make sure you have enough oomph when everyone hammers it hard, especially if your going to be using a lot of packages.
 
I agree with AcidBurn, go with the i3.

I personally have that exact supermicro system you mentioned...exactly.

Only have the one network (LAN) at home and, well, it runs flawlessly with our 60/3 from VirginMedia.

Using only the standard (free) version of the untangle package with all of the free modules running and it never skips a beat.

I know the 3Mb upstream is a bit... well, let`s be honest, it`s piss poor, but we are due an upgrade to at least 6Mb, I have also heard rumours that it MAY go up to 10Mb.

The downstream however does exactly what it says on the tin. I routinely get 60 - 63Mb/s on various speed testers and I can, and have on many occasion, maxxed out the downstream (Steam downloads, and others;):D)

And now I`ve installed a fan to draw some sort of cooling over the D525 CPU, it stays cool and trundles along nicely.

In short, you will benefit from the extra horsepower the i3 has to offer, without losing out too much on the other hand with wasted heat/energy consumption.

With 100/10, I wouldn`t even consider anything less than the i3
 
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Rison said:
It's running the newest version of untangle. It has a few issues I think though, as it's not using full throughput of the internet connection (100meg cable)
Plugging a laptop direct to the internet modem will result with full speeds on speedtest. We're looking at replacing the old server anyways.
Click to expand...

i'm guessing a memory upgrade would probably solve your problems...

which xeons?


as far as the D525s are concerned i run pretty much the exact setup as you at ~30 locations, but the biggest pipe we have is a 35/5 (and we pay a fortune for it) so i can't say either way...

obviously the more things you have on your untangle rack, the more juice you'll need in your server...

the main locations use supermicro server D525 boards, and the satellites use SFF jetway units w/ 32GB SSDs and 2x integrated intel nics... i think only my main VPN hub runs a pentium G620 on a supermicro server board, it also has a few extra nics in it routing a few networks...
 
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op, i wouldn't use anything lower than a i3, put 4 gigs ram in it, and use intel nic's and you will be fine.

i'm back to using my untangle box for a bit.. just doing some swaps :)
 
hey guys, thanks for the replies.

I agree that it might need a bit more power than the atoms. It's so nice to have the atom box all pre-done, i'll have to lookup a mitx board that can take a dual core i3 I guess. It'll be fun to build at least.

We changed out the old HP server to a socket 775 dual core 2.5Ghz w/ 2 gig ddr800 and it's running ok for now. Full 100/10, it's fun to play with. It's just in a standard box temporarily, we'll need to get a new setup in a 1u case to fit in the rack.
 
Rison said:
hey guys, thanks for the replies.

I agree that it might need a bit more power than the atoms. It's so nice to have the atom box all pre-done, i'll have to lookup a mitx board that can take a dual core i3 I guess. It'll be fun to build at least.

We changed out the old HP server to a socket 775 dual core 2.5Ghz w/ 2 gig ddr800 and it's running ok for now. Full 100/10, it's fun to play with. It's just in a standard box temporarily, we'll need to get a new setup in a 1u case to fit in the rack.
Click to expand...

this ?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-...266776?pt=COMP_EN_Servers&hash=item19c630c2d8
 
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Rison said:
Hey, that's pretty much spot on to what we're running. I'm in Canada so we get burned for cross border shopping (don't get me started on 'free trade') but we can build similar from our suppliers.
Click to expand...

you can ask shiper to use usps :) i thought about grabbing one, but right now im back to using my green untangle unit with a new board in it :)
 
When I built my machine I went with exactly these parts (NOTE: I had a specific use-case in mind, and didn't mind buying the dual-NIC Q77 chipset board from Intel.)

- CPU: Intel Core i3-2100 ($86 @ TigerDirect sale)
- Mobo: Intel MicroATX Q77 Motherboard w/ Dual Gigabit NICs ($120 @ Newegg w/ coupon)
- RAM: G.SKILL Ares 8GB DDR3 ($38 @ Newegg)
- DVD Drive: LG DVD Writer (anything cheap will do) ($17 @ Newegg)
- HDD: WD 500GB 7200RPM Drive (anything over 250GB and cheap will do) ($70 @ Newegg)
- Case: Rosewill R379-M (comes with power supply) ($49.99 @ Newegg)
- Keyboard: Cheapest One On Newegg w/ USB ($8 @ Newegg)

Total price including any shipping costs (I have Shoprunner so free 2-day from Newegg on most items) was under $400 assembled. I'm assuming your OS is whatever LINUX flavor runs Untangle (or it's probably a LiveCD that can be installed) so no OS cost to you. I had a key for Windows 7 Home Premium lying around so I used that. I also had a mouse lying around so that worked as well.

You'd probably want to pick a different case since that one is limited to mini PCI cards, which limits your NIC choices somewhat. I do want to get another NIC (or two) for this box so I can split the connection a bit more for specific use-cases, and I think I can achieve that with little additional effort (looks like less than $40 on eBay to get 2 more physical ethernet ports on a single Intel card.)

EDIT: In hindsight a much cheaper mobo and going with a few NICs might've been the less-expensive choice, but I really wanted to use the Q77 chipset and a dual-NIC setup for some reason so I went with this. :) More money than sense, I suppose. I run pfSense inside of an Oracle VirtualBox in Windows 7. The virtual machine is actually the network router (and is the only "machine" exposed to the outside connection). From there it provides DHCP over the internal port to the Windows machine (and to all other machines) via a wireless router and any additional switches that are connected. It's a solid setup and I like it a lot!
 
My spare Untangle box is a core 2duo 4 gigs ram and a 80gig laptop drive, this is just sitting behind my rack, didn't feel like doing anything special to get it in the rack so just left it behind it.

DSCN3293.JPG


Ill probably take the gut's out of it since its a faster machine and throw them into this case :0

my old Untangle box,

DSCN0361.JPG
 
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