Hi Team, What firewalls are the most popular with the kids these days, I have experience at home with Unify - Dream Machine, Pfsense - Netgate 4100, Fortigate - 40F, Untangle - Virtualy, Sophos - Virtually.
Am partial to giving Meraki a run at the moment, my Fortigate License is about to expire and I will not renew it. I bought the Fortigate to learn the platform and it’s quite impressive.
Not interested in Unify these days, it’s improved immensely but it’s not for me. Opnsense is also off the table, it’s also not for me
Solid option, not sure if I want to go back to pfsense, I understand it mostly, still have the 4100 but I don’t need all the bells and whistles pfsense provides.
The other problem which is not really a problem is the 4100 is a router not a switch, meaning the concept of an SVI and switchport is not valid. Vlans are supported but only as sub interfaces on a port, it’s either tagged or the device must use the native vlan.
I would need a switch to handle any untagged port, or my pc would need to supply a tag.
Yes, you need a managed switch in any set up where you want to use VLANs. But honestly, not having VLANs is a huge mistake in a home lab in my opinion.
A sort of coworker uses a lot of Meraki stuff with VPNs all over the world, he works in entertainment where they are sending audio and video anywhere it is wanted. Festivals are one of their bigger recurring jobs. Sorry, I can’t remember the model number they are using, does AX or MX make sense?
He said the biggest thing is that all they need to do is put them on the lan/wan and tell the controller to make a link, and bam! secure VPN link to other sites. He said they use LTE/5G, Starlink, Terrestrial ISP, multiples of all of them, etc. when on site. Dual 40gbps (LAG) is a common backbone between sites (stages). It’s a mix of Dante, NDI, SRT, SMPTE ST2110, MADI, AES67 and control signals. Multicast, unicast, routed versions of both, lighting controls in a couple different IP flavors…
You don’t need to like Cisco, but some of their products make doing work a lot easier when you buy the right level of software and support.
Thanks team, it does not seem there is anything in the market that is not known to me. I still have not decided on a firewall, but I have a few months before the license expires.
Mikrotik RouterOS? I think they have a version that can run on x86 computers. Pretty obscure, but if you just want something to play with, might be fun.
Edit 2, RouterOS only runs for 24 hours in demo mode, you’d need to buy a key for any real testing on a PC. The free registered level might be enough, but guessing $45 will be needed for any real testing. RouterOS license keys - RouterOS - MikroTik Documentation
At this price, buying a cheap device that runs RouterOS might be a better way.
Depending on use case and needs, the Meraki “Go” line is pretty decent if you want it to just work, but it doesn’t have the more advanced features. I also have a Fortigate 40F at home, for the same reasons, just wanted to learn it. Using Sophos XGS3100s at work right now and have had a mostly good experience with them.
