Hardware requirements / support

[cmutwiwa]

Hi,
I'm currently using m0n0wall on 833mhz cpu, 512mb ram, 20gb hdd (I know m0n0wall can run on much lower specs).
I don't intend to use the same for OPNsense so my question is what is the minimum hardware for optimum perfomance.
Before I saw this I was thinking of trying pfsense because of its packages support and multi wan, so does OPNsense have support for multi wan and packages like squid proxy?

Regards

Cosmas.

[tristan]

Hi there,

Hardware requirements *

Besides purchasing a ready to go system from a partner you can also install OPNsense yourself to test or run on the hardware of choice.
OPNsense can be installed on 64bit architecture based hardware. There is a minimum specification to run the full firewall functionality and a recommended specification for the complete set of features.

Minimum hardware requirements

Every feature is functional, but perhaps not with a lot of users or high loads.

1GHz dual core cpu
1 GB RAM
40GB SSD
Serial console or video

Recommended hardware requirements

Every feature is functional and fits most use cases.

1.5GHz multi core cpu
4 GB RAM
120GB SSD
Serial console or video

Source: https://opnsense.org/users/get-started/

I bet that you can get away with way lower specs, depending on your usage scenario and the needed features.

[franco]

The specs should get you going, don't worry.

Multi-WAN is available, but may need some restructuring work. Proxy support will be added as we approach 15.7 in June/July.

You should definitely check out pfSense as well. We tend to keep an open mind. Whatever works for you works. :)

[MrCCL]

I really don't get the "official" hardware requirement (https://wiki.opnsense.org/manual/hardware.html)

I just made a harddisk installation of 18.1:
Mem usage: 147MB
HDD usage: 1,3G

40G of HDD??? I assume that is only if you need to save A LOT of log data, right?

[monstermania]

@MrCCL
I also use OPNsense on rather old and low-end hw. And it is working fine for my requirements as a firewall!  :)
But if you want to use modules like Proxy, AV, IDS/IPS, etc. and/or have a lot users you need much more ressources.
And remeber. It is 2018 and i.e. a PC-Engines APU2-Kit offers the OPNsense minimum hw requirements for < 200€! ;)

best regards
Dirk

[MrCCL]

I'm running it as VM on KVM, that's why ressources matter more than on physical hardware.

[Ciprian]

I don't know about your network and number of clients, I don't know about which particular functions on OPNsense (base + plugins) you intend to use either, but I'd suggest you to configure your VM like:

1. CPU: 2 cores
2. RAM: 1 GB
3. Storage: < 5 GB.

It will do for FW, NAT, DHCP, DNS - DNSMask/ Unbound etc.
If you plan to add web proxy (forward), ha-proxy (reverse), IDS/ IPS etc etc etc then you will definitely need (much) more