is this hardware good enough to build an OPNsense 2.5g router?

A

amd7674

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Hi Guys,

I have some older parts and I wanted to build a VPN router.

CPU Intel i3450 @ 3.10Ghz
RAM 16GB DDR3 1600 Mhz
Planning on buying cheap dual 2.5G Intel i226 nic from aliexpress. The motherboard has bultin Realtek controller 8111f which I probably disable.

Would the CPU be good enough for it?

I'm planning to setup a VPN Wireguard (surfshark VPN) that can be used by any device on my EERO 6 pro network. Later I might replace EERO 6 pro getaway with OPNsense router and use EERO stricly as wifi APs.
 
It really depends on what type of vpn encryption you plan to use. Newer processors have specific instructions for these which make them more efficient, but it's also down to what is being used as some are more processor intensive than others.
 
Real question is how much bandwidth is intended to run through this VPN? I doubt that CPU will handle gigabit, maybe 500Mb if there aren't a bunch of clients?

OP, do you already have this hardware in hand? If you do, give it a try.

If not, and especially just from a pure age-of-stuff perspective, it doesn't cost a lot to get kit that is more capable and 5 years younger. An i3 8000/9000 would do pretty well, here.
 
Thanks for all the replies.

Yes I have hardware on hand except dual 2.5gb nic card, which I would order from aliexpress. Dual nic using I226 from aliexpress should be good enough it? I’m just planning using vpn wireguard (from my understanding using less resources) for few clients on my network to beat geo location restrictions. The end goal would be to handle 1.5gb down / 50mb up connection and replace my eero 6 pro gateway / router; and use 3 x eero pros as wifi APs. Hopefully my hardware would be able to handle dhcp, firewall and few vpn clients. Also I would replace my 16 port gigabit Cisco unmanaged switch with 8 port 2.5gb unmanaged switch.

I don’t think I would be able to test it with just a single nic built on the motherboard. Another problem is that it is Realtek controller which is not well regarded.
 
amd7674 said:
Dual nic using I226 from aliexpress should be good enough it?
Click to expand...
Yes that's fine. You can even get away with cheaper Realtek 2.5GbE NICs by enabling the os-realtek-re plugin found in OPNsense under System -> Firmware -> Plugins.
amd7674 said:
The end goal would be to handle 1.5gb down / 50mb up connection
Click to expand...
You'll be fine with that setup so long as you're not doing Suricata.
amd7674 said:
few vpn clients
Click to expand...
The best performance VPN will be Wireguard, since OPNsense now supports the FreeBSD kernel module by default. Here's a good guide (although it's a little older, I don't think you need to do the first step anymore): https://gateway-it.com/opnsense-wireguard-roadwarrior/
 
The only thing I wouldn't do is source nics directly from china and just get a used one here on the forum, and probably an Intel for the same price to boot.
 
SamirD said:
The only thing I wouldn't do is source nics directly from china and just get a used one here on the forum, and probably an Intel for the same price to boot.
Click to expand...
Meh I have no qualms with this.

I wouldn't use a pre-loaded OS (e.g. on a Chinese mini PC from AliExpress) but the hardware is fine. AFAIK Intel doesn't even have reference PCIe cards on the I226V or I225V(B3) so this is pretty much your only option. Even if you buy something that seems more reputable from Amazon, Newegg or wherever it's just going to be rebadged AliExpress stuff that you could save money on if you research it.

I'm on my third mini PC (Yanling with 6 I211-AT NICs, TopTon with 4 i225V(B3) NICs, CWWK with 6 i226V NICs) and I have had no issues. The potential for a backdoor could be present in the preloaded software, I've never seen the NIC hardware itself have an issue like this. The current NIC in my desktop is a NICGIGA AQC113C which also works fine and even though it was purchased on Amazon, you can get the same thing from AliExpress unbranded for cheaper (used to be a good bit cheaper but now roughly the same).
 
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Not if you get this one (i226t1), but prices are pretty high where ever I've found it, I guess due to availability. "Recommended customer price" is $64, it's $93 on mouser.
 
Dopamin3 said:
Yes that's fine. You can even get away with cheaper Realtek 2.5GbE NICs by enabling the os-realtek-re plugin found in OPNsense under System -> Firmware -> Plugins.
Click to expand...

That's great :) Would there be any benefit of i226 over Realtek with plugin? Like it would use less resources? I'm leaning toward ordering dual 2.5gb (i226) nic from aliexpress.

Dopamin3 said:
You'll be fine with that setup so long as you're not doing Suricata.

The best performance VPN will be Wireguard, since OPNsense now supports the FreeBSD kernel module by default. Here's a good guide (although it's a little older, I don't think you need to do the first step anymore): https://gateway-it.com/opnsense-wireguard-roadwarrior/
Click to expand...

I do have another PC I could use:

CPU Intel Pentium G4500 @ 3.50GHz
RAM 8GB DDR4 1066 Mhz
Intel Ethernet Connection I219-V

However I believe i3450 is a tad faster. So I will stick with i3450 w 16GB RAM which is already in nicer HTPC case ;-)

The ASUS P877-M mobo (used with i3450 CPU) manual says:

1 x PCI Express 3.0*/2.0 x16 slots (at x16)
1 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot [black] (runs at x4 mode, compatible
with PCIe x1 and x4 devices)
1 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots
1 x PCI
* PCIe 3.0 speed is supported by Intel® 3rd generation Core™
processors

Which slot would be best suited for 2.5g dual i226 pci-e card? I guess 1 x PCI Express 3.0*/2.0 x16 slots (at x16)?
 
amd7674 said:
Would there be any benefit of i226 over Realtek with plugin? Like it would use less resources?
Click to expand...
No, just if you're very budget conscious I've typically seen Realtek NICs cost less than Intel ones. OPNsense (pfSense and probably some other firewalls too) use FreeBSD as a base and Realtek NICs were initially terrible. It's only been within the last year or two (I think????) that they've been usable. Realtek put some effort into making a FreeBSD driver, but the FreeBSD community probably did more to make it stable. This is a common NIC since it's on so many motherboards and PCIe cards. The kernel driver provided in FreeBSD still has issues, that's why you see the os-realtek-re plugin on OPNsense which I believe is based upon realtek-re-kmod

Personally I would much prefer the I226V. I'm running two of those (1x WAN, 1x LAN) on my virtualized OPNsense with IOMMU passthrough (so essentially they are presented native to the VM, not doing a bridge or whatever) and they have worked great without needing to do anything extra. I did however add some tunables from this article to maximize performance.

amd7674 said:
However I believe i3450 is a tad faster.
Click to expand...
It is indeed faster: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare/2630vs820/Intel-Pentium-G4500-vs-Intel-i5-3450

amd7674 said:
Which slot would be best suited for 2.5g dual i226 pci-e card? I guess 1 x PCI Express 3.0*/2.0 x16 slots (at x16)?
Click to expand...
Yeah. Ultimately you have to look at what the NIC supports. Let's pretend it's PCIe 3.0 x4. You can put it in your x8/x16 slot but it will only run at x4. Hopefully that main one supports PCIe 3.0 and not running PCIe 2.0. Even PCIe 2.0 x4 = 2GB/s bandwidth (going into either your primary slot or the black physically x16 / electrically x4) will not bottleneck your Internet speeds. It could potentially degrade inter-VLAN if you are doing the typical "router on a stick" config but I believe you mentioned unmanaged switches, so all local communication will go through the switch anyway.
 
AES-NI is "ok", you have to go pretty high end (and new) to get QAT (which could boost performance for encryption significantly).

Lower end CPUs, might not have AES-NI, probably not a good idea.
 
The reason NICs are cheap on AliExpress is because 99% of the time they are fakes....

And PLEASE avoid Realtek NICS in any BSD even linux OS, if you want stability and not have random problems, avoid Crap-Tek nics in *nix. You can still read to this day random issues people have and they often all have realtek nics.. (truenas / pfsense)
 
amd7674 said:
That's great :) Would there be any benefit of i226 over Realtek with plugin?
Click to expand...

I don't have an i226 or a 2.5g realtek, but 1g/10g intel cards allow for multiple queues and 1g realtek don't. Multiple NIC queues allow for better use of multiple cores. Also, the 1g realteks use a single interrupt for everything, instead of separating out rx, tx, and status; that makes the interrupt handler check for and process everything, instead of just what's needed when it's needed. I've seen that lead to vastly unbalanced rx vs tx performance (which won't be an issue for you if you've got a vastly unbalanced upstream connection).

On the driver situation, for 1G, realtek does provide a driver, but no public documentation. The driver sets hardware flags without names, so it's not documentation. I've got a lot of realtek nics on motherboards, and they usually work ok with the FreeBSD kernel driver as long as you don't push a lot of volume. If you do, the NIC to OS communication can get stuck, and resetting the NIC doesn't always work right (the NIC acknowledges a reset, but is still stuck). I haven't seen that happen with the realtek driver, but the realtek driver enables the NIC to send ethernet flow control, which I never want because it's a terrible idea and it's even worse in practice.

All that said, I've heard good things about realtek 2.5g nics, and bad things about intel 2.5g. Last I checked, which was a while ago, I can't use my realtek usb 2.5g nics with FreeBSD, because no drivers from the kernel team or realtek.

One last thing: i5-3450 vs G4500 is 4-core Ivy Bridge vs 2-core Skylake. Skylake is better than Ivy Bridge, much better if your VPN uses AES-NI, but twice the cores is a clear win, as long as your use case will scale to 4 cores. Which probably depends on the nics having multiple queues, and maybe on you not having to suffer the scourge that is PPPoE (which will unfortunately all come in on the same queue, maybe fixable with a lot of work. My PPPoE connection is too slow for me to care though)
 
Last edited:
Dopamin3 said:
Meh I have no qualms with this.

I wouldn't use a pre-loaded OS (e.g. on a Chinese mini PC from AliExpress) but the hardware is fine. AFAIK Intel doesn't even have reference PCIe cards on the I226V or I225V(B3) so this is pretty much your only option. Even if you buy something that seems more reputable from Amazon, Newegg or wherever it's just going to be rebadged AliExpress stuff that you could save money on if you research it.

I'm on my third mini PC (Yanling with 6 I211-AT NICs, TopTon with 4 i225V(B3) NICs, CWWK with 6 i226V NICs) and I have had no issues. The potential for a backdoor could be present in the preloaded software, I've never seen the NIC hardware itself have an issue like this. The current NIC in my desktop is a NICGIGA AQC113C which also works fine and even though it was purchased on Amazon, you can get the same thing from AliExpress unbranded for cheaper (used to be a good bit cheaper but now roughly the same).
Click to expand...
I know far too much about the shady bait and switch and other garbage that is pulled by chinese sellers of tech. And I've gotten my information from the top of some of the world's largest electronics companies, so I have a vastly different opinion.
 
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THank you ALL for your feedback !!!! :) Networking is my strong suite, and setting up OPNSense router it would be great learning experience and project

SamirD you scared me so much I might kill the idea of buying form aliexpress :) Thank you for trying to find some NICs for me, but I think I need a dual 2.5G NIC card if I want to build OPNServer (my end goal).

So based on all the feedback I've received I will go with my hardware with my initial hardware

CPU Intel i3450 @ 3.10Ghz (AES-NI supported)
RAM 16GB DDR3 1600 Mhz

Please correct me if I'm wrong but for the initial setup (OPNSense as VPN Wireguard only) behind my EERO 6 pro (gateway/router) I can use single NIC card? So I might as well try to use motherboard's gigabit Realtek controller 8111f to see if it is recognized by OPNSense for it.

For my OPNSense router setup I would buy dual Intel based NIC card or buy one from amazon.ca (30 days return policy in case it won't work) Do you have any recommendations? It looks like amazon.ca has very similar NIC to aliexpress LOL
 
amd7674 said:
THank you ALL for your feedback !!!! :) Networking is my strong suite, and setting up OPNSense router it would be great learning experience and project

SamirD you scared me so much I might kill the idea of buying form aliexpress :) Thank you for trying to find some NICs for me, but I think I need a dual 2.5G NIC card if I want to build OPNServer (my end goal).

So based on all the feedback I've received I will go with my hardware with my initial hardware

CPU Intel i3450 @ 3.10Ghz (AES-NI supported)
RAM 16GB DDR3 1600 Mhz

Please correct me if I'm wrong but for the initial setup (OPNSense as VPN Wireguard only) behind my EERO 6 pro (gateway/router) I can use single NIC card? So I might as well try to use motherboard's gigabit Realtek controller 8111f to see if it is recognized by OPNSense for it.

For my OPNSense router setup I would buy dual Intel based NIC card or buy one from amazon.ca (30 days return policy in case it won't work) Do you have any recommendations? It looks like amazon.ca has very similar NIC to aliexpress LOL
Click to expand...
You're welcome. Assuming you have additional slots, you don't need a dual nic, just get 2x of them. And you can find some of the i225 pretty cheap used as a quick search in the STH classifieds section found one for 15€ from someone in the EU, and I'm sure someone there has then local and cheap. In fact, I would post a WTB there for the exact intel card you want as people there typically don't have a use for even 10Gb anymore. And the card could also be from Dell or HP or Fujitsu or Lenovo if you want to stay away from fakes--just look for the Dell/HP/Fujitsu/Lenovo part number and you can sometimes find a sweet deal since no one knows all the part numbers.

Agh, you're in Canada--I see the emphasis on price. We are spoiled here in the US for sure. But I would check the forums redtagdeals and hardwarecanucks as they both have good nic deals time to time. I think provantage ships to canada and they have a good branded startech RTL8125 for $31 that's better than the shady on amazon or ali:
https://www.provantage.com/~7STRN06V.htm

They have a lot of other options too, but it seems like dual port cards definitely are a premium, so maybe 2x single cards is the way to go: https://www.provantage.com/service/searchsvcs/Q-P?QUERY=2.5gb&CAT=NNIC++

You should also be able to find the startech card somewhere local so may even be a better deal.
 
I dig out my old gaming PC.

CPU Intel i3570k@ 4.50Ghz (AES-NI supported)
RAM 16GB DDR3 1600 Mhz
better mobo with:
• 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots <-- I will be use these when buying future 2.5g NICs.
• 4 x PCIe 2.0 x1 slots
builtin Intel® 82579V controller

I've already created bootable USB stick with latest OPNSense and I'm ready to go... :)
 
amd7674 said:
I dig out my old gaming PC.

CPU Intel i3570k@ 4.50Ghz (AES-NI supported)
RAM 16GB DDR3 1600 Mhz
better mobo with:
• 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots <-- I will be use these when buying future 2.5g NICs.
• 4 x PCIe 2.0 x1 slots
builtin Intel® 82579V controller

I've already created bootable USB stick with latest OPNSense and I'm ready to go... :)
Click to expand...
Solid. Start with that and then add more NICs as needed. Who knows, you may find that 2.5Gb is just too slow when 10Gb SFP+ cards are far cheaper. ;)
 
amd7674 said:
I dig out my old gaming PC.

CPU Intel i3570k@ 4.50Ghz (AES-NI supported)
RAM 16GB DDR3 1600 Mhz
better mobo with:
• 3 x PCIe 3.0 x16 slots <-- I will be use these when buying future 2.5g NICs.
• 4 x PCIe 2.0 x1 slots
builtin Intel® 82579V controller

I've already created bootable USB stick with latest OPNSense and I'm ready to go... :)
Click to expand...
That's not a bad setup for virtualizing OPNsense in Proxmox. You probably will only need 4 - 6GB of dedotated WAM for OPNsense, so you can virtualize it. With the leftover CPU/RAM resources you can spin up some LXCs with fun stuff like Pi-Hole, etc...

Bare metal is fine too. Good luck on your adventures. OPNsense is awesome :)

I don't use the community repository but it's something cool to check out: https://www.routerperformance.net/opnsense-repo/
 
Dopamin3 said:
That's not a bad setup for virtualizing OPNsense in Proxmox. You probably will only need 4 - 6GB of dedotated WAM for OPNsense, so you can virtualize it. With the leftover CPU/RAM resources you can spin up some LXCs with fun stuff like Pi-Hole, etc...

Bare metal is fine too. Good luck on your adventures. OPNsense is awesome :)

I don't use the community repository but it's something cool to check out: https://www.routerperformance.net/opnsense-repo/
Click to expand...
Thank you so much guys !!!, [H] community never disappoints :) Networking was always my weakest IT area, and I'm always struggling with it. Before moving to set-it-and-forget-it my current 3 x EERO 6 Pros mesh I've used for a long time Asus routers with Merlin fw to have more flexibility... but as I got older I think I got lazier LOL. This project of setting up OPNsense is suppose to teach me more about Networking.

FIrst I think I will go with bare metal installation with a single NIC (builtin on motherboard), the goal is to setup OPNsense VPN Wireguard behind my EERO 6 pro (gateway/router). I believe all I have to do it portforward OPNsense on EERO router. After I get more familiar with OPNsense I will go to buy dual 2.5gb card to go further and try to setup OPNsense router (WAN/LAN). Based on the reading, avaiability and return policy (in case if it doesn't work) I'm planning on buying QNAP QXG-2G2T-I225 (it should come with i225-lm b3 chipset).

Your reply talking about virtualizing OPNsense got me thinking, I'm sorry for asking this, but .... currently I'm running Plex / media server (windows 11 with multiple SMB shares) that I use on my local LAN devices via Plex / Kodi or Plex remotly.

My windows 11 build is:
8700k (delidded) @ 5Ghz
RAM 16Gb Gskill
Asrock Z370 Taichi with builtin two gigabit ports (1 x Giga PHY Intel® I219V, 1 x GigaLAN Intel® I211AT).

I'm sorry I haven't done any research, would it be possible ot virtualize OPNsense on my windows 11 box? I would like to still be use windows 11 as my main PC, plex/kodi media SMB server.

~OR~ is it better to build stand alone OPNsense box as I planned to do?
 
Having your VPN on an End User device in a virtual machine seems a bit risky. Just my opinion. I personally prefer a bit more isolation with my network hardware, or at least have them both in VMs (although that has risks as well).
 
btw... If I move to 2.5gb LAN upgrade, what unmanaged switch would you recommend to buy? 8 ports (or more), 2.5gb (or faster)? there are some cheap noname switches, however there could be some performance issues with them. I don't want any latency or speed dropout issues. Currently I use Cisco a gigabit 16 port unmanaged as my main switch and everything has been solid.
 
I tend to error on the side of "more" with regards to ports. ServeTheHome (yt) is your friend. They may have some good suggestions.
 
amd7674 said:
I'm sorry I haven't done any research, would it be possible ot virtualize OPNsense on my windows 11 box? I would like to still be use windows 11 as my main PC, plex/kodi media SMB server.
Click to expand...
Technically it might be possible but I wouldn't do this. Running a type 1 hypervisor and virtualizing multiple things? Sure. Running Windows 11 as a desktop OS and virtualizing your firewall? I wouldn't go near that.

amd7674 said:
btw... If I move to 2.5gb LAN upgrade, what unmanaged switch would you recommend to buy?
Click to expand...
https://www.servethehome.com/the-ul...gear-hasivo-mokerlink-trendnet-zyxel-tp-link/
 
any ideas on how to perform OPNSense testing without interrupting my local LAN (3 x EERO 6 pros wired, using 16 port unmanaged switch (and few more switches along the way)). My family uses LAN almost 24/7 and I cannot afford to bring it down.

I have a spare 5 port gigabit switch and I could use another PC / laptop to test it. I'm limited to wired testing. Would buying dual 2.5g NIC make sense now for testing (WAN and LAN)? Again I do apologize for not using proper terminology (I suck at networking), but would I able to connect my OPNSense router box to local LAN (to get access to internet, just like any other device on my LAN) on its WAN port (1st port on pci NIC card) and use LAN line (2nd port on pci NIC card) to connect to the seperate 5 ports gigabit switch and finally from switch connect it to test PC / Laptop? Again I don't want to interupt my current LAN. I would like to seperate OPNSense router testing to its own network. Would that be possible?

Any help / suggestions would be much appricaited :)
 
amd7674 said:
any ideas on how to perform OPNSense testing without interrupting my local LAN (3 x EERO 6 pros wired, using 16 port unmanaged switch (and few more switches along the way)). My family uses LAN almost 24/7 and I cannot afford to bring it down.

I have a spare 5 port gigabit switch and I could use another PC / laptop to test it. I'm limited to wired testing. Would buying dual 2.5g NIC make sense now for testing (WAN and LAN)? Again I do apologize for not using proper terminology (I suck at networking), but would I able to connect my OPNSense router box to local LAN (to get access to internet, just like any other device on my LAN) on its WAN port (1st port on pci NIC card) and use LAN line (2nd port on pci NIC card) to connect to the seperate 5 ports gigabit switch and finally from switch connect it to test PC / Laptop? Again I don't want to interupt my current LAN. I would like to seperate OPNSense router testing to its own network. Would that be possible?

Any help / suggestions would be much appricaited :)
Click to expand...


You could put your OPSense off one of the LAN ports of your current router. You would have to remove the firewall policy of blocking internal networks. This would give your OPSense an internal IP as the WAN IP.

You could then set up your DHCP scope for the OPSense as a different subnet (example if your EERO 6 gives out IPs like 192.168.0.10/24 , OPSense make your LAN DHCP server 10.0.0.1/14

Now go out from your OPSense LAN port to a computer/ switch ,you connected directly to with a device, it and go nuts!

When the OPSense works how you want... you move it to be the main device..

Any chance your ISP Router allows a "bridged" mode?
 
MrGuvernment said:
You could put your OPSense off one of the LAN ports of your current router. You would have to remove the firewall policy of blocking internal networks. This would give your OPSense an internal IP as the WAN IP.

You could then set up your DHCP scope for the OPSense as a different subnet (example if your EERO 6 gives out IPs like 192.168.0.10/24 , OPSense make your LAN DHCP server 10.0.0.1/14

Now go out from your OPSense LAN port to a computer/ switch ,you connected directly to with a device, it and go nuts!

When the OPSense works how you want... you move it to be the main device..

Any chance your ISP Router allows a "bridged" mode?
Click to expand...

Thank you, I think I understand the big picture ;-) I hope I can figure it out how to set up OPSsense subnet on EERO router.

Yes, my ISP Modem/Router is already in a "bridge" mode for EERO 6 pro main pod (gateway/router).
 
amd7674 said:
Your reply talking about virtualizing OPNsense got me thinking, I'm sorry for asking this, but .... currently I'm running Plex / media server (windows 11 with multiple SMB shares) that I use on my local LAN devices via Plex / Kodi or Plex remotly.

My windows 11 build is:
8700k (delidded) @ 5Ghz
RAM 16Gb Gskill
Asrock Z370 Taichi with builtin two gigabit ports (1 x Giga PHY Intel® I219V, 1 x GigaLAN Intel® I211AT).

I'm sorry I haven't done any research, would it be possible ot virtualize OPNsense on my windows 11 box? I would like to still be use windows 11 as my main PC, plex/kodi media SMB server.

~OR~ is it better to build stand alone OPNsense box as I planned to do?
Click to expand...
Absolutely can virtualize, but you'll proabably need to up the ram since windows itself is nearing 32GB a minimum.

Networking is a different animal from virtualizing (I haven't virtualized anything yet even though I've got all the hardware gathered for years now), so I'd treat them both as separate things or you may find yourself way underwater quick. :confused:
 
amd7674 said:
any ideas on how to perform OPNSense testing without interrupting my local LAN (3 x EERO 6 pros wired, using 16 port unmanaged switch (and few more switches along the way)). My family uses LAN almost 24/7 and I cannot afford to bring it down.

I have a spare 5 port gigabit switch and I could use another PC / laptop to test it. I'm limited to wired testing. Would buying dual 2.5g NIC make sense now for testing (WAN and LAN)? Again I do apologize for not using proper terminology (I suck at networking), but would I able to connect my OPNSense router box to local LAN (to get access to internet, just like any other device on my LAN) on its WAN port (1st port on pci NIC card) and use LAN line (2nd port on pci NIC card) to connect to the seperate 5 ports gigabit switch and finally from switch connect it to test PC / Laptop? Again I don't want to interupt my current LAN. I would like to seperate OPNSense router testing to its own network. Would that be possible?

Any help / suggestions would be much appricaited :)
Click to expand...
You could do that for sure, but I'd eliminate the 5-port switch as it's not really doing anything--your test desktop/laptop will behave the same if it's the LAN port or if it's in the switch so no need for the switch.
 
MrGuvernment said:
You could put your OPSense off one of the LAN ports of your current router. You would have to remove the firewall policy of blocking internal networks. This would give your OPSense an internal IP as the WAN IP.

You could then set up your DHCP scope for the OPSense as a different subnet (example if your EERO 6 gives out IPs like 192.168.0.10/24 , OPSense make your LAN DHCP server 10.0.0.1/14

Now go out from your OPSense LAN port to a computer/ switch ,you connected directly to with a device, it and go nuts!

When the OPSense works how you want... you move it to be the main device..

Any chance your ISP Router allows a "bridged" mode?
Click to expand...
Yep, this is the way. :)
 
amd7674 said:
Thank you, I think I understand the big picture ;-) I hope I can figure it out how to set up OPSsense subnet on EERO router.

Yes, my ISP Modem/Router is already in a "bridge" mode for EERO 6 pro main pod (gateway/router).
Click to expand...
You wouldn't need to set up anything on the EERO as the opnsense would be just like any other LAN device and get its own DHCP address on its WAN. The LAN that was being referred to was opnsense's LAN range because if they are the same, there's so funky stuff that happens (bad).
 
So after a lot of thinking I will skip upgrading my LAN to 2.5g and I will wait for 10g be cheaper :cool: However I want to still build OpnSense box , can you please recommend a good dual / quad gigabit intel card? Would this be good (Intel 82575/82576 Controller)?
 
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