is pfSense suited for my setup?

3

I have a fairly large home network that consists of:

  • 2 wired PCs,
  • 3 Smartphones,
  • 1 Tablet,
  • 2 wireless PCs
  • 2 wired gaming consoles
  • 2 wireless gaming consoles

The problem is that I think that my router has problems handling all the traffic that this generates, since it crashes (reboots, no more WAN, etc.) every once in a while. I have an old machine here, a couple NICs, and a switch. Would it make sense to get that box to run pfSense and distribute traffic across different NICs (1 to switch for wired, 1 to router (as AP) for wireless)?

nospoone

Posted 2012-02-19T23:42:57.280

Reputation: 33

This question is better suited to SuperUser – gWaldo – 2012-02-20T00:02:00.837

Answers

4

pfSense would work, although likely overkill.

Try DD-WRT first, if you can. Your current router may support it.

http://www.dd-wrt.com/site/index

Robert

Posted 2012-02-19T23:42:57.280

Reputation: 421

I did try DD-WRT on a WRT54G we had, and that did not fix the problem. Maybe I missed a configuration somewhere? – None – 2012-02-20T00:23:14.693

Its odd that you'd still have the issue with DD-WRT on that router. I've run it in much larger environments with success. Possibly a bad router or poor internet connection? pfSense would be a good next step then if you have the hardware already. – Robert – 2012-02-20T00:55:56.623

It is odd, as I have seen DD-WRT perform well in large scale deployments as well. Maybe it actually was the router. I'll try DD-WRT on this one, and move to pfSense if that does not fix the problem. Thanks! – nospoone – 2012-02-20T00:59:59.497

I used to be an IT consultant, I've put DD-WRT in near 50 SMB office environments and have had near 0 issues, usually on that same WRT54G (or the WRT54G-L). I've also had great success with PFsense too, i set it up for my current work as well as a couple of my larger clients. – Robert – 2012-02-20T01:04:31.903

Running DD-WRT atm on the new WRT400N we have over here, and everything is going well. I'm guessing the 54G was bogus! Thanks again! – nospoone – 2012-02-20T03:56:10.213

Asked: 2012-02-19T23:42:57.280

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Active: 2012-02-20T00:26:40.580