At the moment, I am using a single Dell Optiplex 7010 box as a multipurpose server: it runs OpenBSD and a lot of its base applications (relayd for reverse proxying, httpd as a HTTP server, pf as a firewall, etc) and some from the ports tree (like nsd for an authoritative NS, unbound for LAN DNS, …). It also runs a single Alpine VM inside that in turn hosts some dockerized apps (like Lemmy :-))
This setup is suboptimal, as OpenBSD’s virtualization support is still in its early stages, so I wanted to make a defining change: move OpenBSD + all base stuff to a separate ‘firewall’ box and dedicate my 7010 to be a docker host (probably installing alpine linux directly).
My question is: what hardware can you recommend for the OpenBSD box? I would want something with low power consumption. It does not have to be beefy, most of the resource-hungry stuff will probably be on the docker box. One thing though: it would be nice to be able to handle gigabit network throughput for the future.
I have been looking at APU2 boards, Raspbery Pi 4B (I am not sure about the OpenBSD support, though), Intel NUCs, and also Dell Optiplex micros and minis. It would be great to get away with a budget below €100. Thanks in advance for any insight!
You can also add a m.2 A+E network card to a dell or HP. The 720q is the best IMO over all but if you just need WAN/LAN and some basic routing there are plenty of low cost 1l PC’s.
The m.2 A+E card/adapter replacing the wifi card is new to me. Very cool.
It’s a great and easy way to take a thin client or older SFF 1l PC and turn it into a high performance router for often less than the cost of an SBC. And often has better features like virtualization so you can run multiple applications.
Wow, that’s cool. Is that an Intel based nic, driver support is good?
The 10g sfp+ are mellenox connect x3, the rj45 is a 2.5g realtec. There are Intel based m.2 A+E cards but they are hard to find.
I have not had any issues with realtec on proxmox or PFsense.