Router + Firewall + NAS?
 

Hey guys.

Looking to make a real manly firewall finally, and considering a few: pfense, smoothwall and untangle. Only issue is, I want a router as well as a file server (NAS) capability. Any of these guys good for that? Does anyone currently do this now?

I'm trying untangle right now and I can't seem to find anything that says so, so im hoping im wrong. And as I recall, Smoothwall doesn't do this.

i was playing with pfsense for a while, didn't ever see a NAS / file sharing option in it. It's a fully featured firewall, but that's it iirc

Since the nas would be behind the firewall it won't make a difference.

Is there a reason you feel you need something like Smoothwall? A consumer grade router is perfectly fine for most applications and uses.

My way to have this is to have WHS installed on the box for the NAS and backup side then install Endian Firewall in a VMWare instance (I have 3 nics on the box with 2 of them 100% dedicated to Endian) to handle the routing/firewalling side. It works great for my needs.

Well a few reasons. First of all, I have 2 WAN connections, so I want to be able to log and manage them closely. Second of all, I need a more powerful router.

I thought about doing this but I'm only going to be using a 3800+ x2 so its not going to be blazing.

Placing the fire3wall on the NAS is risky. if for some reason an app is crashed or compromised the whole thing becomes vulnerable. There is a good reason firewalls should run on dedicated hardware without other services. I'd reuse an older machine or a cheap new one and put OBSD and pf on it for a firewall and put the rest of the network behind it.

I don't have any important files on my NAS, and i will also take extra precautions. I just don't want to have to have 2 boxes eating up power and space.

i wouldn't use 2 boxes for this because by placing both your firewall and nas on the same box you a single point of vailure for your internet and online file storage. if you have a seperate router and ti dies you can still access your files. But if you really want this it would probably be easiest to just enable nfs or smb on your linux router.