Mini-ITX and pfSense a perfect combination!
Posted by Robert Olofsson 2010-01-18 20:53 | Updated by Robert Olofsson 2010-01-18 21:54 | 4 Comments | Tags: Jetway, Mini-ITX, Morex, pfSense, Router, VIA
As I mentioned in my previous blog post my first encounter with the Mini-ITX standard was back in 2008 when I realized that my old trusty Linksys WRT54G router couldn't handle the 100Mbit internet connection I had just installed.
Finding a new router that handled 100Mbit full duplex and had a open firmware proved to be nearly impossible. So I decided to build a small computer and run one of the many different Linux and BSD distributions available out there targeted at firewall/router applications.
The result of this little "experiment" proved so successful that I haven't looked back since!
Enough talking lets cut straight to the hardware. I wanted a motherboard that had dual gigabit ethernet interfaces and was passively cooled. After doing some research and checking the compatibility of various network cards against Linux and BSD i decided on a Jetway J7F4 motherboard which has dual Realtek RTL8110SC gigabit network cards.
The drivers in Linux and BSD for this network card were a bit sketchy but after some trial and error I settled with an early version of pfSense 1.2.1. This proved to be a good choice since it has worked very well and been extremely stable handling Bittorrent traffic at 8MB /sec and multiple OpenVPN connections simultaneously without breaking sweat.
To go along with the motherboard I bought a 512MB stick of RAM and cheap 1GB USB stick that I use as hard drive. To prevent the USB stick from wearing out due to all the writes I switched pfSense to embedded mode which severely reduces the amount of writes.
Anyway a computer without a case doesn't score very high on the WAF scale so I bought a Morex T3310 case.
Now I had a totally silent computer almost the size of a Linksys WRT54G but with a lot more power and that could run any OS I'd like. Mission accomplished!
Comments
Posted by Emi 2010-03-21 09:14
Does this setup get hot? I have the same motherboard and if I don't put a fan on the heatsink it gets too hot to touch. Is it safe to operate the processor so hot?
Posted by Robert Olofsson 2010-03-22 06:25
The system has never overheated on me even though I keep it in a server closet that often reaches temperatures of 25°C.
However the metal mesh on the top of case get's quite hot sometimes so I'd say the system is probably running a bit hot but it doesn't seem to be a problem.
Posted by Jisung, Ahn 2010-03-27 05:20
Hi, I have a question about your mini-itx backup server at gallery.
First picture of your mini-itx backup server have Right angled sata power cable.
I search it on all web, but I could not found what is's model no or vendor.
I want to make very slim case but only problem is sata power cable.
Please let me know what is model no of your sata power cable?
Posted by Robert Olofsson 2010-03-28 09:12 | Updated by Robert Olofsson 2010-04-01 10:33
Hi Jisung,
The power cable you see on the pictures of the mini-itx backup server came with the D945GSEJT motherboard.
I don't know if you can buy it separately.
Edit : you could probably buy this cable and modify it to suit your needs:
http://www.mini-box.com/P4-ATX_2