In this section, we will understand the throughput requirements, and subsequently the processing and memory requirements needed for our environment.
We'll want to prepare for determining our requirements by gathering the following information:
- Our internet connection speed
- Our network hardware speed (10/100/1000 Mbps)
- The connection speeds different users will be expecting
Let's begin by considering the throughput guidelines provided on the official pfSense website:
Firewall throughput |
Processing power required |
Hardware (PCI-X/PCI-e NICs) |
21-50 Mbps |
500 MHz CPU |
No |
51-200 Mbps |
1 GHz CPU |
Recommended (for 100 Mbps and faster) |
201-500 Mbps |
2 GHz CPU |
Recommended |
501+ Mbps |
3 GHz CPU |
Recommended |
The following table defines any additional system requirements that would be necessary if deploying...