2.5GbE Linux Firewall Micro Appliance Celeron N5105 4xIntel I226 Nic Firewall Router PC 8GB DDR4 128GB M.2 NVMe SSD AES-NI

First thing I did was boot to OPNsense and install. Device works great. Using it with two ports trunked with a 2.5gb switch, VLAN tagging, etc., Everything I want to enable with OPNsense just works, including ZENarmor (aka Sensei), Squid proxy, IDS, VPN, etc. It does run hot with the passive cooling (150*F) and I need to add a fan for the case before the summer just to circulate the air, but it's been perfectly stable.

A couple of observations from reading other reviews here:1- Secure Boot CAN be turned off. I'm running OPNSense virtualized on Proxmox with secure boot off.2- My instance of OPNSense has Dual WAN, one of them being Comcast, and it works perfectly fine. The other reviewer is getting a 192.168.x.x IP because their router may not be in bridge mode and there's dual NAT-ing going on.3- To get into the BIOS you need to press the ESC key... so what? In some systems it's F12, in others F2 or F10 or WHATEVER.4- This machine is designed to be a firewall, not a PC with WiFi. The WiFi slot was put in the only other place possible considering how small this computer is. I put a WiFi card there and get pretty good signal, even without any antennas and wires. It would have been a fine system WITHOUT a WiFi slot, so the fact that it is there is added value.Overall, I don't see anything wrong with this system at all. It's been running 24x7 with 32GB RAM and a 256GB NVME drive for a few weeks perfectly fine, and for the money you can certainly do worse.

My order was shipped from China and was received 2 weeks earlier than originally expected, thanks for that!If you are ordering this, you should be VERY competent in computer networking. (A firewall is in no way something for an inexperienced person to try.)Once received, the coin-battery was loose and rattling inside the computer. The double sided tape that was supposed to hold it to the USB ports did not last shipping halfway around the world, so this is something for the manufacturer needs to correct. (The coin-battery is not heavy enough damage the circuittry inside, and it was completely encased in a rubber shrink wrap.) This is the sole reason for 4 stars, not 5 stars. The computer was not damaged because of the unsecured battery.Since I had the device open, I looked the device over. Everything was installed correctly. (By the way, I am A+ certified, and have built many computers in the past.) The RAM was even secured with hot glue. The RAM and M2-drive were not brands known to most US consumers, but they perform respectable.Once the computer was closed, I did some prep work on my home network. I Changed my mesh WIFI setup to access point(AP) mode. (You should not set it as a router when you have a separate firewall device.) I also made sure to turn off the DHCP server on my cable/DSL modem, and set to bridge mode. (A firewall will have its own DHCP server, 2 DHCP servers will be a bad thing.)pfSense was pre-installed on this device, so in theory you could turn it on and be ready to go. But I, and everyone else should do this, rest the BIOS/UEFI settings, and erased the pre-installed pfSense. I Installed pfsense again with my own settings and configuration. Not that I don't trust the computer manufacturers, I just want to have things done MY way. I was able to get everything done in 2 hours.The big question is "Why did I want my own firewall?" Because my cable provider has my modem locked down, and I cannot make any adjustments with the configuration of a piece of equipment that I purchased. Including updating the firmware on the cable modem, which would fix a known security vulnerability! They will not install the new firmware that would fix the security issue on my behalf either. I understand that you don't want unprofessional users messing with updating the firmware on devices, but to force people to leave their home devices vulnerable to a security threat is unacceptable! ( Ahem... off topic...) Instead of purchasing a new cable modem, I decided to get a firewall that will block the known (and many unknown) security vulnerabilities. The firewall costs about 30% more than a new cable modem, and pfSense is constantly updated, open sourced (so everyone can see what is happening "under the hood" of the program), and free. The new cable modem would also be locked down by the cable company.The four 2.5Gb ethernet ports make this device ready for the long term future. 1Gbe has been standard for 10 years or so, and we are just starting the transition to 2.5Gb. And 2.5Gb can use CAT5e (or CAT6 and higher) cable, which has been the standard cabling installation since 1998-2000. The Intel 5105 CPU is a great choice to do deep packet inspection and not slow down your connection. 8GB RAM and 128GB M2 are both overkill for a firewall, but allows for other things to get installed alongside pfSense in the future.30 days in and I am not having any issues and the machine is working fine. I have an energy monitoring device installed in my circuit breaker panel (for solar panels) and this small computer draws 20-40 watts, depending upon the load. Usually 22 watts.

so, in short, its a show-stopper.I insist that my installs be able to work with DOS disk partitions (not gpt) and with a regular /dev/sda1 (or nvme0n1p1) partition and NOT that uefi nonsense. this is NOT windows..so, I struggle to get into bios. its not DEL but its ESC key. and the default vendor install turns off all delays at boot so it was a real struggle to get to bios. I try to disable secure boot and install regular linux via usb. I finally get in but it insists on it being GPT and I wont accept that. (it does not have to be, either; grub works just fine on dos and 4 primary parts like the old days).this system is not fun to work with, either. internally the wifi card slot is under the m2 ssd slot. I find that annoying and for heat, its a problem. even routing wires for antennas is going to be harder than it has to be.I had hopes for this box but its not worth the high cost of it, for what it is. and the state of pfsense is pretty bad too, I have to say. trying to connect to comcast, it would NOT get the proper dhcp from the isp. it should be 76.* but it kept seeing 192.168.100 nonsense. that should never happen. I tried for hours and could not get simple wan routing to work. I gave up on pfsense. have not tried opensense yet but pfsense is a loser since it cant even do simple comcast dhcp client.overall, a disappointing experience.the hardware looks like it COULD work, but its just underwhelming and a time sync, which I dont want to throw more time at, at this point.