Alder Lake N100 fanless build

[sos_opnsense]

I've purchased an Alder Lake N100 from aliexpress as an upgrade from my aged HP SFF 6300 (i5-3470T). Use case is as home router, serving about 50 devices, including NAS, on a 300/100Mbit WAN fibre connection, 1Gbit backbone & switches (no 2.5G or 10G).

It's one of the older, cheaper options - but still has DDR5 support, and 4 x intel i226-V NICs.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005593329224.html

Main reason is auto power-on restore (I unhooked the PSU and CPU fans from the SFF to make it silent, since it's running in my office, and so it won't boot up without manually overriding the fan error), and secondarily to reduce power consumption. I've been running OPNsense for about 4 years, and have a well set up installation, including Zenarmor, HAProxy, wireguard and openVPN servers.

Reading these forums there doesn't seem to yet be much information - but there's a Serve The Home forum Youtube review (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58nVTNYrJ3E&t=910s) which makes 'em look pretty compelling from a price / performance point of view.

Hopefully the install all goes to plan - I've got 16GB Crucial DDR5 4800, and a Crucial P3 nvme ready to go.

Will update this thread in due course - but in the meantime, keen to hear of others' experiences / tips.

Edit: found a good guide on migrating OPNsense to new hardware. Wish me luck!

https://homenetworkguy.com/how-to/migrate-opnsense-to-new-hardware/

[wizdude]

How did you go with this install? I was also interested in getting an N100 box, but saw a thread where there were issues with this chipset and FreeBSD.

i'm keen to run IPS and Zenarmor for my home network, and i think one of the pentium 5xxx or 6xxx boxes may not be powerful enough. the N100 would provide a nice CPU speed increase.

Cheers, Wiz!!

[sos_opnsense]

Well, the N100 box arrived today. That's pretty speedy shipping from Aliexpress (11 days from click to door).

Although an older version of these N100 boxes, it sure looks and feels nicely put together.

In light of the N100 chip issue with 23.1, I went ahead and have installed 23.7 RC1. Installed fine, uploaded my previous config file easily using the instructions I linked in my first post. I had to change the NIC interface names from igb0 and igb1 to igc0 and igc1 for WAN and LAN respectively, and for my 3 VLANs.

Idle temp 44C. Aluminium case is pleasantly warm to touch.

Long story short it *mostly* all works - as evidenced by me posting this from my new box. Wireguard works OK, after reinstalling the plugin.

BUT a few packages aren't yet available for 23.7. Under Firmware > Plugins, the following is shown:

os-acme-client (missing)   
os-dyndns (missing)   
os-etpro-telemetry (missing)   
os-haproxy (missing)   
os-sensei (missing)   
os-sensei-updater (missing)   
os-sunnyvalley (orphaned)   1.2_3 643B N/A   OPNsense   Vendor Repository for Zenarmor (a.k.a Sensei, Next Generation Firewall Extensions)   
os-wireguard (orphaned)

Since I need HA Proxy, it looks like I'll be going back to my old box for a little longer...but I'm impressed with this little N100 so far!

[athurdent]

Thank you for sharing!
I'd love to see some iperf3 LAN - WAN throughput tests with Zenarmor active, if you find the time and have the possibility. Have also been looking at those newer processors, would probably opt for an N200 box at some point.

[wizdude]

the 23.7-RC being based on FreeBSD 13.2 was great news. they specifically have some fixes in there for Alder Lake which hopefully addresses the problems using the N100.

i would imagine the plugins will come soon.

please keep us posted on your N100 journey. this really looks like a great firewall box to use for opnsense.

cheers, Wiz!!

[sos_opnsense]

How did you go with this install?

i'm keen to run IPS and Zenarmor for my home network.... the N100 would provide a nice CPU speed increase.

As mentioned, the install was straightforward. No errors.

As per the repo errors, it looks like Zenarmour and a couple of other packages aren't yet available.

The N100 is definitely a nice speed increase over my aged i5-3470T.... around twice as fast in CPU mark. And more energy efficient.

[134]

In light of the N100 chip issue with 23.1....

Can you talk more about this issue.

[sos_opnsense]

In light of the N100 chip issue with 23.1....

Can you talk more about this issue.

Intel Alder Lake: data corruption with Read&Write files to FAT32 or UFS
https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=261169

[sos_opnsense]

My problem with missing packages was solved by reverting the sunnyvalley repo back to 23.1 temporarily, as per almodovaris's helpful post:

https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=34977.msg169520#msg169520

So - all is now up & running, and I've switched the N100 router into production :)

[xternal`]

Hi there thanks for posting this. I would be really interested to know what wireguard performance is like? i am in the process of upgrading my router and looking for one which will support gigabit wireguard

edit: Also what temps are you seeing?

[athurdent]

Hi there thanks for posting this. I would be really interested to know what wireguard performance is like? i am in the process of upgrading my router and looking for one which will support gigabit wireguard

This is not very scientific, as I have not measured the Wireguard speed of my OPNsense running on a AMD EPYC 3251 Proxmox host, but here's a Site to Site VPN tunnel between the above my N100 (also running as a Proxmox VM, interfaces passed through) :

[xternal`]

Thanks, interesting looks like it should handle it fine

[athurdent]

Thanks, interesting looks like it should handle it fine

It'll also do line-rate Zenarmor throughput, if that's of interest.
https://forum.opnsense.org/index.php?topic=35023.msg170055#msg170055

[Izanami]

Considering getting something similar from AliExpress, https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805482073699.html?spm=a2g0n.productlist.0.0.6ade263fasMk0y&browser_id=816de12586f74033a8a197c296c52431&aff_platform=msite&m_page_id=puhyysaagcardzqx18a2f8579a51ef7313e720b9d2&gclid=&pdp_npi=4%40dis%21USD%21229.20%21119.18%21%21%21229.20%21%21%402122436b16930143912156686d0880%2112000033953188056%21sea%21US%212748491881%21A&algo_pvid=2c8381bb-b158-49f4-b7bc-e9379a7a7dbd

Just confirming is the N100 still the best value/performance at the moment?

Thanks again

[newsense]

From N5105 onward is really hard to go wrong with any newer chip, the two things that I'd pay attention to is the number of cores and manufacture as some initial builds have had improper cooling requiring users to reapply thermal paste and make sure contact with the chassis is proper. Check STH reviews as well on Youtube and on their site/forum