Selfhosted

Like other people suggested here, use opnsense instead of pfsense, and wireguard instead of openvpn. What I did for my homelab was to get a used HP t620 thinclient and an Intel 350 card with 2x 1gbps ports. You say you have 10gbps, so you would need a card that can handle that, and maybe a beefier CPU. For my setup, this tiny 65€ machine is not even feeling it. Single digit cpu usage for 2 wireguard connections, a little over 1GB RAM usage for a handful of services. I think for you an n100 with 4gb of ram is more than enough, but going for 8gb will be better and it will not be much more expensive.

For your router setup, it sounds like you're looking for a high-performance system to act as a gateway for your entire network. Given your fiber internet connection (10 Gbps up/down), you'll want components that can handle that kind of throughput efficiently.

Suggested Hardware: Processor (CPU): A multi-core processor like an Intel i7 or i9, or AMD Ryzen 7 or 9 would be ideal. These chips offer good processing power for managing high-bandwidth traffic.

RAM: 16GB of RAM should be more than sufficient for most routing tasks. If you plan on running additional services like firewalls, VPNs, or network monitoring tools, you could consider going up to 32GB for added headroom.

Ethernet Ports: Since you need at least two Ethernet ports, make sure to choose a motherboard with built-in dual NICs (Network Interface Cards) or add a dedicated dual-port Ethernet card. You'll also want to look for support for 10Gbps Ethernet adapters if you're aiming to fully utilize your fiber connection's speed.

Storage: Since you're mainly using this as a router, SSD storage is typically unnecessary unless you're running a network service like a DNS cache or logging heavy traffic data. A small SSD or even a regular HDD would suffice.

No GPU Needed: You're right, you don't need a GPU for routing tasks unless you're running other applications like video rendering or gaming servers.

This setup should provide the stability and performance you're looking for, and ensure that your network can fully utilize that 10 Gbps fiber connection.

Also, while we're discussing performance and efficiency, if you're interested in expanding your use of AI, especially for networking tasks like optimizing configurations or generating reports, I recommend checking out ChatGPT Español. It’s a great tool for automating language-based tasks, translating configurations, or even generating documentation for network setups in Spanish

You got the idea from here, right? :D

im thinking to start with just a raspberry pi and using nix to manage whats installed. i'll read up on the router issue, but i wonder if it's that important to me. i have installed openwrt before and it wasnt too bad.

I’m not sure if you ever made your way to following through with this… But the three node system isn’t a bad starting point. However, here’s how I would approach it (similar to how I actually got my start in homelabs and how I do things now)

1 system for your router (looks like you picked a Qotom unit, those are decent), 8-16 gb ram

1 system for proxmox virtualization… run all your services in LXC’s or Virtual machines, as much ram as you can get a get for your system

And 1 system dedicated to storage (truenas or unraid), 32gb ECC ram (personal preference but not necessarily needed even with zfs for home use)

I’d start at https://reddit.com/r/homelab … but since we’re on Lemmy, I’d rather suggest posting on [email protected] (new, but looking to gain traction)