Pancakes Posted August 7, 2013 Share Posted August 7, 2013 As you may know, I wanted to start building a nice pfsense/untangle router. The price with all the good bells and whistles and NICS take it to around $200 - $250. Now I have decided I want another box for ESXi to have alongside my G7 file server. It seems kind of stupid to make a router now when I could just use a microserver with ESXi and run whatever I want for not a whole lot more, since I want another server anyway! What kind of hardware will I need for this box? Suggestions? It will run pfsense for routing, untangle for virus scanning etc, and then loads of VM's. As for hard drives, ill need a bit of storage for all the VM's that I might make, so SSD's seem too expensive, and I really want RAID on this build. 4 x 500GB Raptors in RAID 10? at $80 a pop it doesnt sound too bad, and it will give me 1TB of fast storage to play with http://www.goharddrive.com/White-Label-VelociRaptor-500GB-10K-RPM-32MB-Cache-p/g01-0681.htm And then for the NIC's. Will just 2 be enough or will I want to go for an extra 2 or 4? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ikon Posted August 7, 2013 Share Posted August 7, 2013 I'm from the school that believes routers/gateways/UTMs/etc should be standalone, not VMs. A router running in a VM will go down every time the host has to be shutdown or rebooted, which will interrupt Internet connections with any other devices on the local network. For me, that fails the WAF test Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pancakes Posted August 7, 2013 Author Share Posted August 7, 2013 Hmm thats true, then perhaps a G7 for only routing purposes? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ikon Posted August 7, 2013 Share Posted August 7, 2013 I think a G7 would make a pretty fantastic router. If it was mine, I would be installing Untangle on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pancakes Posted August 7, 2013 Author Share Posted August 7, 2013 I was still thinking untangle and pfsense in ESXi, but since its just for routing I would never mess with it. how would that work NIC wise? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ikon Posted August 7, 2013 Share Posted August 7, 2013 In an N36L, N40L, or N54L, you would need to install an extra NIC. A x1 PCIe NIC would do fine, such as an Intel 1000 Pro CT. For Untangle, you only need 2 NICs; one for the LAN and one for the WAN. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pancakes Posted August 7, 2013 Author Share Posted August 7, 2013 (edited) So if I were to have these in VM's how would linking them up work in ESXi? I am a little familiar with ESXi, but no idea how to link them up Edited August 7, 2013 by Pancakes Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ikon Posted August 7, 2013 Share Posted August 7, 2013 I thought you were talking a G7 MicroServer for only routing. Are you talking pfSense and Untangle on the MicroServer? In ESXi? If so, I'm afraid I can't help. I used VMware years ago, but I've ever used ESXi. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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