[wplug] PFSense, load-balance router setup on old hardware.

[Doug Green]

Thank you Drew!
Very helpful- I will get to work learning a bit about what you recommend.
On a "nuts and bolts" level, what hardware are you using in your setup? If I want say, 8 RJ-45 jacks for wiring in my home, do I need to buy equivalent number ethernet cards (and have a huge PCI bus on my motherboard), or is there an easier way to achieve that? 
Thanks again!



> On Mar 31, 2015, at 1:05 PM, Drew from Zhrodague <drewzhrodague at zhrodague.net> wrote:
> 
>> On 3/31/15 2:20 PM, Doug Green wrote:
>> My home network has two DSL lines coming into a TP-Link load
>> balancing router in order to "duplex" the bandwidth (we have really
>> slow internet where I live). Long story short, I need more RJ-45
>> ports than my load balancing router can provide.
>> 
>> I'd like to recycle one of my old computers as a router. Does anyone
>> have experience using pfsense or zeroshell in this capacity? The docs
>> seem to indicate that it's more geared toward replacing firmware in
>> an existing router. Instead of buying a dedicated router, can I add a
>> bunch of network cards to an old tower?
> 
>    I use a PC as a router, and have done so for many many many many years. I prefer a standard Linux PC to any of the available router options.
> 
>    My trick is to enable ipv4 forwarding, toss in some iptables for ip masquerading, a little DHCP and DNS - good to go. Bonus that you don't need to forward ports to get a service running to the outside.
> 
>    You can add a bunch of NICs to any junk PC, and turn it into a router. Here's the magic required:
> 
> # Turn on ip-forwarding
> echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forwarding
> 
>    Add some iptables and shake (eth1 is local for me):
> 
> -A PREROUTING -i eth1 -j MARK --set-mark 0x9
> -A POSTROUTING -m mark --mark 0x9 -j MASQUERADE
> 
> 
>    I have used many many many kinds of routers over the years. Nothing is as robust and full-featured as a junk PC with my favorite Linux distro on it. It's also helpful to do packet captures, collect actual logs, and run debugging tools - many routers just don't have that ability. Happy Networking!
> 
> -- 
> 
> Drew from Zhrodague
> post-apocalyptic ad-hoc industrialist
> drew at zhrodague.net
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