James,<br><br>It sounds like a fun project! I am very tempted.......<br><br>However, I found this one - <a href="https://www.flashrouters.com/netgear-wnr3500l-ddwrt-router.php">https://www.flashrouters.com/netgear-wnr3500l-ddwrt-router.php</a> for $80. It has wireless, but I can just turn it off. A 480 MHz processor, and dd-wrt installed and tested with openvpn. I haven&#39;t priced out your parts list, but I would be surprised if it comes to less than $80. Also, I think the netgear router will consume less power and space in my crowded cable &quot;closet&quot; (aka the top shelf in my cupboard).<br>
<br>Answers to your questions - <br>I need a total of 20 gigabit LAN ports for my network. Currently, I have two 8 port gigabit switches, and 4 10/100 ports on my current BEFSX41 router. I want to upgrade the router for open vpn, and gigabit speeds. So the router is also a switch. <br>
<br>What is the advantage of running the whole thing virtualized?<br><br>But still, the fun of building this little project may outweigh the high costs ($ and amps).....<br><br>Mark<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 11:10 PM, James Dugger <span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:james.dugger@gmail.com" target="_blank">james.dugger@gmail.com</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">MSI Micro ATX board with Athlon II processor w/ 4 PCI slots (or 2 PCI and 2 PCIE)<div>2 GB RAM</div><div>4 gigabit NIC cards</div>
<div>IDE or SATA to Compact Flash  Adaptor</div><div>Compact flash 2GB memory - install Linux or Router based distro on CF card or USB memory stick</div>

<div>External power 120v to 12v transformer w/ mono power converter</div><div>Small micro case</div><div>Set BIOS to boot CF Card or USB Memory stick</div><div>Ubuntu 10.04 or 12.04 LTS server minimum install</div><div> - Install Openssh</div>


<div> - Firewall</div><div> - OpenVPN</div><div> - iptables</div><div><br></div><div>Basically you are building an edge router/vpnserver.  There are a lot of instructions to build a high end router/openvpn system using a minimum box configuration.  The mobo  chip and RAM maybe overkill but smaller ATOM based boards probably won&#39;t have 4 PCI slots.  you should be able to pick up these for very reasonable cost compared to a higher end router.  Do you need all 4 - 1 gigabit connections to the router or can the connections to the VPN be shared off of one or two NICs?  OpenVPN needs a minimum of 2 NIC&#39;s  (Unless you have set up virtual network adaptors and bridged them together).  Are you dedicating each user to a NIC for speed?  If not you could allocate the 4 users to a NIC and connect the router/vpnserver to a 4 port gigabit switch.</div>


<div><br></div><div>I&#39;m sure there are a number of the ways to do this and there even might be fairly high end router for a good deal but most will also have built in wireless as well.  to find a dedicated wired only higher end router you may pay as much as the system I just outlined and it would be no where near the capabilities of the above system unless it was a lot more expensive.</div>


<div><br></div><div>I&#39;m sure that there are others here with a lot more experience with consumer and enterprise level equipment then myself but I have had success with the above. Also keep in mind that the Athlon II is 64bit with SVM built in for virtualization.  With additional memory you could run the whole thing virtualized using KVM or VMware.</div>


<div><br></div><div>Good Luck!</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div class="h5">On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 7:53 PM, Mark Phillips <span dir="ltr">&lt;<a href="mailto:mark@phillipsmarketing.biz" target="_blank">mark@phillipsmarketing.biz</a>&gt;</span> wrote:<br>


</div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div class="h5"><p>I am looking for a router with the following characteristics:<br>
* No wifi<br>
* 4 gigabit LAN ports<br>
* 1 WAN port to connect to my Cox Cable Modem<br>
* 400 MHZ+ processor so I can run OpenVPN SSL for a max of 4  remote users to access the LAN at the same time.</p>
<p>The last point comes from reading various forums about running openvpn on the router, and they all say get the fastest possible cpu. I probably have to run dd-wrt on the router to get openvpn running on the router, but I am open to other options (most of the open source router packages support openvpn, so anyone will do).</p>




<p>Thanks!</p><span><font color="#888888">
<p>Mark</p>
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