Is the absolute bomb......no idea why I did not do this sooner.
It has also totally resolved an issue my router/modem combo had which would see it drop the connection for a millisecond (Line still trained/Authentication still up). Would boot me from games/IM but reconnect seconds later. Very very annoying.
I'm running it off an ancient lenovo desktop, P4 3GHz, 1GB RAM with the onboard NIC and 1 PCI expansion NIC.
Ontop of that you would expect out of a router/firewall (DHCP etc) pfsense is now running:
PPTP VPN endpoint (Road warrior connection back home for remote access or secure net usage on mobile devices)
SSH Server (Road warrior port tunneling where VPN cannot be connected or SSH client is only option)
Traffic Shaping (More than myself uses the internet connection)
Nice custom rulesets to disallow connections to unauthorised DNS servers as specified by me (Quick and easy block against any DNS hijack exploits)
If anyone has ever considered building their own router/firewall on kit they have laying around I say go for it - It's powerful and fun to do anyway! Does not even need to be super powerful hardware although headroom helps when you start loading up the filters, services and any extra packages. The Antivirus and peerblocking packages look pretty interesting and will have to give them a try.
Having a proper PPTP VPN endpoint is a godsend for my Android devices
It has also totally resolved an issue my router/modem combo had which would see it drop the connection for a millisecond (Line still trained/Authentication still up). Would boot me from games/IM but reconnect seconds later. Very very annoying.
I'm running it off an ancient lenovo desktop, P4 3GHz, 1GB RAM with the onboard NIC and 1 PCI expansion NIC.
Ontop of that you would expect out of a router/firewall (DHCP etc) pfsense is now running:
PPTP VPN endpoint (Road warrior connection back home for remote access or secure net usage on mobile devices)
SSH Server (Road warrior port tunneling where VPN cannot be connected or SSH client is only option)
Traffic Shaping (More than myself uses the internet connection)
Nice custom rulesets to disallow connections to unauthorised DNS servers as specified by me (Quick and easy block against any DNS hijack exploits)
If anyone has ever considered building their own router/firewall on kit they have laying around I say go for it - It's powerful and fun to do anyway! Does not even need to be super powerful hardware although headroom helps when you start loading up the filters, services and any extra packages. The Antivirus and peerblocking packages look pretty interesting and will have to give them a try.
Having a proper PPTP VPN endpoint is a godsend for my Android devices