Very nice video ! Thanks I have almost the same mini PC from another brand (Intel J4125 + 4 x 2.5Gb Eth) so I was really interested by your test since I am planning to use pfSense on it. I will post here my result when my setup will be finished. Best regards
I am testing out a similar system based on the N5105 processor. Heat is a concern. At idle, the chassis is about 50C (122F) and the CPU core temp is 60C (140F). I am not sure how long these system will last running at these temperature continuously. If you are interested in buy these, I'd look for ones that have extensive fins to keep the system cool or go for ones with a fan.
Yeah, I think heat is definitely going to be a concern long-term. Been running this box since I posted the video, and it idles between 150-170F most days.
From AliExpress i got similar box with N5105 i226-V network ports, 16gb ddr4 RAM, 256GB nvme m.2 SSD, the unit runs very hot which is my main concern - any suggestions?
Thanks a lot for the video! Is it possible if you can make a video on how to configure multiple trunk ports on multiple NICs (acting like a switch) on OPNsense. I just received my Qotom Q1012GE and it has 8 NICs. I would like to utilize four of them to form a switch. I want all four of them to be trunk ports, carrying the same tags on each trunk (native, VLAN10 and VLAN20). Is it even possible at first? If so, how to configure? And will it affect the firewall rules? Thanks again.
You sold me on this unit.. though I went with no drive or ram since I have 8gb sticks here and a 480gb 2.5" ssd I'm gonna toss into it. The NIC's were detected at install and no oddball issues with em right?
@@0x2142 I'm really looking forward to it. My opnsense image had a bad partition table ,so I ended up on pfsense CE. It's been an interesting struggle since I've been doing it from within my environment trying not to drop things, creating a trunk port, etc... I don't think I"m gonna be able to push this in the least... It's only gonna be handling like 3-4 zones (untrust, private, general use lan, lab, wireless, and storage) with a little bit routing, very few rules... Just doing the install I"m not seeing any heat at all, not even breaking 40C on the processor. Got a bare bones and dropped an 8gb sodimm I had laying around and a 400gb ssd (also had it laying around).. So far I'm quite impressed on how well it runs. I was expecting much less responsiveness from it...
@@0x2142 Ended up with pfsense.. my download of opnsense had an invalid partition table and I sad f it lol. Been running smooth. I see 50% max cpu load when running speedtests, and it sits at about 35-37C under normal use... Really happy with it, just a learning curve. Been 20 years since I messed with FW's
Great Presentation! I would like to see you show a configuration of a site to site WireGuard VPN (branch to HQ) with the main HQ site in a dual WAN failover. Instead of routing all traffic through the VPN from the branch to HQ, just some of the traffic that is hosted by HQ (shared network drive, private web application, etc.) so that regular internet traffic can still use the branch ISP (spit VPN). Then how does wan fail over handle that VPN tunnel if the HQ primary ISP goes down.
My Q750G5 was delivered this morning. Didn't expect there to be any content about this obscure box, so I was quite surprised to find this. Going to subscribe in case you decide to make more OPNsense videos. Great job on this one.
Thanks for all the info! Looks like even 8g of ram might be overkill. Spend less on ram and more on cpu. Am curious what cpu level would end the capping out on test. To the pfsense people, when I tried installing pfsense on my n5105 box it wouldn't install because of lack of drivers for the 2.5 nics.
J4125 is sufficient. There is a version with the newer n6005 cpu and the tigerlake i7 mobile cpus. Using a custom built Frankenstein opnsense box with a ryzen 3200g at 4ghz and 16gb ddr4. Maxes wireguard and openvpn on my gigabit connection with snort, clam av,etc.
Nice video. I have been running pfSense on a 6 port Qotom mini PC for 4 years and works great. Unless I miss heard you, that is an mSATA SSD and not M2 SSD.
Great video, thanks! In my case 8g RAM 128GB SSD would be more than enough and it costs $174. Unfortunately I leave in EU, it there does not seem to be way to ship it to my country, unless there is a way I am not aware of...
I have a similar N5105. It looks very similar. I run XCP-NG on it then Opnsense. very capable, but it does run a bit hot so I got a tiny 40mm fan and it makes a big difference.
ProXmoX ?? I have two WAN ports that give me two dif WAN IP's from my ISP. Currently I have them both configured to two different Routers - about 50 devices. But this is becoming a hassle when trying to print etc. I think I may just combined them and do Multi-WAN fail-over and Load Balancing. But I all so want to segment my LAN with separate vLAN's. One for IP Cam's - Streaming - Gaming - VOIP - etc. Can you make a video showing how to do that?
Qotom does provide some BIOS updates on their website, though I haven't seen any yet for this specific model. For what it's worth, I've been running this box for about 10 months now & haven't had any issues.
I'm coming up on about 2 years of having mine running 24x7 as my home firewall. So far I haven't run into any trouble & it performs just fine. That being said, my use case isn't likely the most disk-intensive - so perhaps it just depends on the use case. I think at this point I would just keep the one they shipped unless anything comes up.
Hi there - Any port can be used as LAN or WAN. While OPNsense will automatically assign one LAN & one WAN port, they can be reassigned. I'm using the first two ports on mine as WAN, since I have a primary & backup internet connection - then I use the rest as LAN.
Thanks very much for your review and the tests. I got a similar mini-pc without active cooling. would you mind telling us how hot were the cpu temp sensors during normal workloads? my one is running most of the time at 60 dgrees celsius , so not sure if this is normal
Hi there! So I've been running this box for a while now, and so far have had no issues. Going through the history I have, CPU temp seems to average between 50-60 Celsius. For what it's worth, mine is in a small space that's shared with a few other mini-PCs and a NAS.
Great...but you were too fast on the validation of the file. I tried to search on google but it did not work. I am on Win 10 ..please can you be a little more simple for validating the download
Hi there - I use an application called HashTab, which adds a new tab in the Windows file properties for calculating SHA/MD5 hashes. Using this tool, you could copy a file hash from the OPNsense download page, then right click on the file & click properties. The utility would add a new tab that automatically calculates & compares file hashes for you. Unfortunately, I just found out it was discontinued a few months ago - but there are other softwares that should be able to do the same thing. If you search, there are still downloads of the HashTab utility available too, but they are no longer updated/supported.
So far so good - This box is still my primary home firewall & no issues to report yet! I didn't take temps during the stress testing, but I'll certainly add that to my list for next time I do something like this. During average daily usage though, it's fluctuating between 120-140°F
@@0x2142 yeaahhhh....not comfy with putting a passively cooled box running at 120-140F in an enclosed space, especially when that's where it sits under standard load.
![[How To] Set up WireGuard VPN on OPNsense (& Client Config Examples)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/b58PpuIsQ3A/mqdefault.jpg)
great video, I need to pick up one of these, your install looks easy to follow, thank you.
I really enjoyed your video man, nicely done.
Glad to hear it! Thank you for the comment 😊
Very nice video ! Thanks
I have almost the same mini PC from another brand (Intel J4125 + 4 x 2.5Gb Eth) so I was really interested by your test since I am planning to use pfSense on it.
I will post here my result when my setup will be finished.
Best regards
Awesome! Glad to hear it was useful. Hope your system works great too!
Very informative. Thank you.
I am testing out a similar system based on the N5105 processor. Heat is a concern. At idle, the chassis is about 50C (122F) and the CPU core temp is 60C (140F). I am not sure how long these system will last running at these temperature continuously. If you are interested in buy these, I'd look for ones that have extensive fins to keep the system cool or go for ones with a fan.
Yeah, I think heat is definitely going to be a concern long-term. Been running this box since I posted the video, and it idles between 150-170F most days.
I have a similar j1900 box that's also fanless. It always felt very hot to the touch but it had lasted almost 7 years.
Wow, that was pretty cool. Thanks for sharing that ( :
This was such a fantastic video that addressed all my concerns. The quality here is incredible. Thank you so much, I've subscribed.
Hi there! Thank you so much for the comment & sub 😊. Glad to hear you enjoyed the video!
From AliExpress i got similar box with N5105 i226-V network ports, 16gb ddr4 RAM, 256GB nvme m.2 SSD, the unit runs very hot which is my main concern - any suggestions?
Thanks a lot for the video! Is it possible if you can make a video on how to configure multiple trunk ports on multiple NICs (acting like a switch) on OPNsense. I just received my Qotom Q1012GE and it has 8 NICs. I would like to utilize four of them to form a switch. I want all four of them to be trunk ports, carrying the same tags on each trunk (native, VLAN10 and VLAN20). Is it even possible at first? If so, how to configure? And will it affect the firewall rules? Thanks again.
ur the best owo
hi there, do you think OPNSense would work in an VM ?
Yeah absolutely! I have a couple VM instances in my lab that I use regularly & it works great 👍
@@0x2142 what do you use as os ? i was thinking of installing truenas scale and doing a vm of opnsense in there
I use VMWare ESX. Never tried out True NAS, but it should work if it supports VMs
You sold me on this unit.. though I went with no drive or ram since I have 8gb sticks here and a 480gb 2.5" ssd I'm gonna toss into it. The NIC's were detected at install and no oddball issues with em right?
Awesome! I hope you enjoy the unit - mine is still running smoothly. Everything was detected properly during install, no issues 👍
@@0x2142 I'm really looking forward to it. My opnsense image had a bad partition table ,so I ended up on pfsense CE. It's been an interesting struggle since I've been doing it from within my environment trying not to drop things, creating a trunk port, etc... I don't think I"m gonna be able to push this in the least... It's only gonna be handling like 3-4 zones (untrust, private, general use lan, lab, wireless, and storage) with a little bit routing, very few rules... Just doing the install I"m not seeing any heat at all, not even breaking 40C on the processor. Got a bare bones and dropped an 8gb sodimm I had laying around and a 400gb ssd (also had it laying around).. So far I'm quite impressed on how well it runs. I was expecting much less responsiveness from it...
@@0x2142 Ended up with pfsense.. my download of opnsense had an invalid partition table and I sad f it lol. Been running smooth. I see 50% max cpu load when running speedtests, and it sits at about 35-37C under normal use... Really happy with it, just a learning curve. Been 20 years since I messed with FW's
Awesome! Glad to hear it's been working well for you!
Great Presentation! I would like to see you show a configuration of a site to site WireGuard VPN (branch to HQ) with the main HQ site in a dual WAN failover. Instead of routing all traffic through the VPN from the branch to HQ, just some of the traffic that is hosted by HQ (shared network drive, private web application, etc.) so that regular internet traffic can still use the branch ISP (spit VPN). Then how does wan fail over handle that VPN tunnel if the HQ primary ISP goes down.
Made in china - anyone inspect the firmware? can you install coreboot on it?
My Q750G5 was delivered this morning. Didn't expect there to be any content about this obscure box, so I was quite surprised to find this.
Going to subscribe in case you decide to make more OPNsense videos. Great job on this one.
I have had a Qotom: i5-5250U, 8GB RAM and 120GB SSD since 2017. Use pfesense - fantastic!!
Thanks for your test! Can you say something about power consumption (idle, stress 1 core, stress all core, "normal use")?
What a great video! Please continue with the opnsense content!
Thanks for all the info! Looks like even 8g of ram might be overkill. Spend less on ram and more on cpu. Am curious what cpu level would end the capping out on test. To the pfsense people, when I tried installing pfsense on my n5105 box it wouldn't install because of lack of drivers for the 2.5 nics.
J4125 is sufficient. There is a version with the newer n6005 cpu and the tigerlake i7 mobile cpus. Using a custom built Frankenstein opnsense box with a ryzen 3200g at 4ghz and 16gb ddr4. Maxes wireguard and openvpn on my gigabit connection with snort, clam av,etc.
Nice video. I have been running pfSense on a 6 port Qotom mini PC for 4 years and works great. Unless I miss heard you, that is an mSATA SSD and not M2 SSD.
Great video, thanks! In my case 8g RAM 128GB SSD would be more than enough and it costs $174. Unfortunately I leave in EU, it there does not seem to be way to ship it to my country, unless there is a way I am not aware of...
What's surprising, is that you wouldn't get even 50% of that performance if using Cisco router up to 2k $.
🙃
I have a similar N5105. It looks very similar. I run XCP-NG on it then Opnsense. very capable, but it does run a bit hot so I got a tiny 40mm fan and it makes a big difference.
I've deployed 2 of these with PfSense and they were pretty awesome!
Thank you for the instructions!
ProXmoX ?? I have two WAN ports that give me two dif WAN IP's from my ISP. Currently I have them both configured to two different Routers - about 50 devices. But this is becoming a hassle when trying to print etc. I think I may just combined them and do Multi-WAN fail-over and Load Balancing. But I all so want to segment my LAN with separate vLAN's. One for IP Cam's - Streaming - Gaming - VOIP - etc. Can you make a video showing how to do that?
Exact same situation for me!
Thanks for the video. Is Qotom providing BIOS update on their website? If not, is it gonna be a problem in the long run? Thanks again.
Qotom does provide some BIOS updates on their website, though I haven't seen any yet for this specific model. For what it's worth, I've been running this box for about 10 months now & haven't had any issues.
Incredible video!
Great video!
Would you stay with the ssd they shipped or would you replace it with something that has a better reputation for reliability?
I'm coming up on about 2 years of having mine running 24x7 as my home firewall. So far I haven't run into any trouble & it performs just fine. That being said, my use case isn't likely the most disk-intensive - so perhaps it just depends on the use case. I think at this point I would just keep the one they shipped unless anything comes up.
can you connect to the firewall dashboard without the box?
What is the average electricity consumption?
Would love to know if the wifi worked with opnsense or not. I need an all in one
those are all lan ports? can I use them as wan?
Hi there - Any port can be used as LAN or WAN. While OPNsense will automatically assign one LAN & one WAN port, they can be reassigned. I'm using the first two ports on mine as WAN, since I have a primary & backup internet connection - then I use the rest as LAN.
@@0x2142 Is there a fail over configuration option for OPNsense?
Thanks very much for your review and the tests. I got a similar mini-pc without active cooling. would you mind telling us how hot were the cpu temp sensors during normal workloads? my one is running most of the time at 60 dgrees celsius , so not sure if this is normal
Hi there! So I've been running this box for a while now, and so far have had no issues. Going through the history I have, CPU temp seems to average between 50-60 Celsius. For what it's worth, mine is in a small space that's shared with a few other mini-PCs and a NAS.
Great...but you were too fast on the validation of the file. I tried to search on google but it did not work. I am on Win 10 ..please can you be a little more simple for validating the download
Hi there - I use an application called HashTab, which adds a new tab in the Windows file properties for calculating SHA/MD5 hashes. Using this tool, you could copy a file hash from the OPNsense download page, then right click on the file & click properties. The utility would add a new tab that automatically calculates & compares file hashes for you.
Unfortunately, I just found out it was discontinued a few months ago - but there are other softwares that should be able to do the same thing. If you search, there are still downloads of the HashTab utility available too, but they are no longer updated/supported.
So it's been awhile. Still working well? How were the temps during those high CPU tests?
So far so good - This box is still my primary home firewall & no issues to report yet! I didn't take temps during the stress testing, but I'll certainly add that to my list for next time I do something like this. During average daily usage though, it's fluctuating between 120-140°F
@@0x2142 yeaahhhh....not comfy with putting a passively cooled box running at 120-140F in an enclosed space, especially when that's where it sits under standard load.
Wireguard Please!!! :-)
Why not run Windows Server 2022 with routing and dhcp?