I am thinking of building a router for OPNsense. I am familiar with building computers but I am not familiar with networking. What kind of hardware would I need to hit 1, 2.5 (my most likely target), 5 or 10 gigabit speeds on my local network?

I was thinking of buying a small form factor PC and sticking an Intel I226 Network Card or something similiar in it.

So, what kind of processor would I need?

  • Observer1199English
    3·
    10 days ago

    https://docs.opnsense.org/manual/hardware.html

    Depends on what features you want to enable and how many devices are using the network but a relatively recent quad core above 2ghz is probably plenty. If you want to do packet inspection or such, more Is probably better but you’re not going to need a 32 core or anything. Is there a specific reason you want a 5gb local network, or just want the fastest network you can afford?

    • Svinhufvud@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
      1·
      10 days ago

      I was targeting the 2.5 gb/s local network, as I am starting to have equipment with 2.5 gig ports, so I might as well make use of them.

      • Observer1199English
        1·
        9 days ago

        Consider buying dedicated firewall hardware - check out “DEC677 – OPNsense Desktop Security Appliance”. I don’t have experience with opnsense hardware but I use similar for a different os. The idea is that you won’t run into compatibility issues since opnsense will test all updates on their own hardware before releasing them and should be optimised, etc.