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Building A Router

#1

Hi all, so I am upgrading my old PfSense Router, and I need help.

Since my first router box, some hardware has stoped being produced and more firmware options have come about.

So I need help looking for the right hardware.

I do live streaming, and heavy gaming on both my consoles, handhelds, mobiles, and PC’s.

Some of my handhelds and my retro PC’s can not use WPA, they are limited to WEP. Also I am looking to build this machine to be a quad-core web caching router firewall combo, with WAN failover, and load balancing. For gaming I am looking for functionality like Netduma routers offer. For NIC’s I need the router to have no less than two WAN ports and 4-8 LAN ports, I will have my Console on a Switch tied to one port, PC’s on a switch tied to another, the Wi-Fi transceivers on another switch tied to another port still, and the home NAS on two ports to aggregate traffic. The rest for expansion or guest / DMZ later down the road.

The issue is figuring out hardware that is as compact as possible, and low power draw as possible, as well as what firmware options are best for this build. I want to avoid buying an out of the box router, for a mix of security reasons, and feature sets.

Thanks all for your help.

#2

Have not done one yet, I do know crit and L1T has done videos on it

Old TS videos:


Newer L1T video:

mind you these are just using old computers… these may be more what you want

http://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=J1900D2Y#Specifications

and shove them into something like this

or
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/2GB-RAM-1TB-HDD-Celeron-N3150-Mini-Fanless-Nuc-PC-6W-TDP-VGA-HDMI-WIFI-BT/217312_32542519524.html

but I personally would rather use a old pc myself If I was to do this.

Also am told this is a good guide

#3

I run an Ipfire Based system. it runs in a HP SFF 7200 which i upgrade to 6GB for ram and a q6600
here is a few screenshots

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#4

Honestly you don’t need much more than a core 2 duo. I had a PFS box for around a year and it was just on a pentium 4. You can get those for 10 bucks.