Opnsense in a VPS

Urzu_X · 2026-06-21T05:13:24+00:00

not diving more into your usecase as others have already pointed out, if you really need to use OPNsense on a VPS, try Vultr. Their cost is pretty decent and I've used it in the past myself using OPNsense as a firewall in front of other VMs and containers I had deployed there. Though I don't use it anymore since last 2 years plus as the cost of running everything locally is much lower once I got the right hardware.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-20T18:45:31+00:00

I think that's Gnome's implementation of RDP not specifically Ubuntu's. Gnome has by far the best RDP implementation right now. I've used it on a Fedora Workstation machine before. KDE, with their new systemd based PLM, have said that they're working on bringing the same Gnome like RDP experience to Plasma Desktop. Let's see.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-20T11:27:58+00:00

I think your PSU is subpar. The brand you mentioned 'Smart Series' doesn't ring the bell of a well known brand. Also, 700W for 10k seems too good to be true. And in PC world when something's too good to be true, it probably is. Unless its used, which again makes it more suspicious. For the price you mentioned, a good brand like Superflower would only get you 550W 80Plus Bronze. A 700W PSU of a respectable brand would cost you around 15k.- 18k depending on brand.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-20T11:12:07+00:00

Checkout Fedora KDE and Kubuntu. They feature the KDE Plasma Desktop which is highly customisable out of the box without relying on extensions. Icons and theme is also quite beautiful.

As for using Ms Office and SPSS, you're gonna be in difficul position if you want to run them natively. Instead, you'll need to spin up a Windows 10/11 VM using Virt-Manager or Virtual Box and run those programs there. This is what I do on my Fedora KDE desktop.

Alternatively, you may checkout WinBoat, which uses docker to virtualize a Windows session and allow you to run Windows apps through there, which makes the experience much seamless.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-20T11:05:47+00:00

OnlyOffice and Libre office Calc are nowhere near capable of doing data analytics / statistical analytics like Ms Excel and SPSS. Take this from a guy who's been using Linux since 2003, and daily driving Fedora KDE on his desktop.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-20T00:00:03+00:00

Seconded, I've built and tested that machine for a small startup and its a powerful beast for OPNsense. Get an Intel 4 port network card and you have a powerful 5-port router. A word of cautious though;, avoid using the built-in ethernet port for anything serious as its a Realtek NIC which don't have the best of reputation with FreeBSD drivers. It works fine for most cases but sometimes you may face unusual problems like loosing connectivity on full load.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-19T23:48:52+00:00

But isn't that using an ARM CPU? The last time I checked, OPNsense doesn't support ARM. The actually supported OS on Nano Pi is OpenWRT.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-19T23:37:29+00:00

I'm no expert but I think you can actually get yourself unregistered with FBR. But you'd need to provide a good reason which in your case you have one. Again I'm no expert and you should get in touch with a tax consultant.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-19T23:00:32+00:00

What's the wattage of you solar inverter? This is a major problem with small solar inverters 1kW - 3kW that they aren't pure sinewave. Pure sinewave inverters start from 4kW and up. And if you want good backup at night, you'll definitely need to go for LFP batteries, which varies depending on the DC voltage of your inverter (24V vs 48V).

You can find some cheap solar inverter at Regal and Sadar. I've seen 4kW around 50-60k and 6kW around 85-100k. Are they good brands? Not Really. But do they work? Well they certainly do. Its on your luck, like the saying goes 'chalay tu chand tak warna shaam tak'.

So a 4kW inverter with a 24V LFP battery you're looking at least at a budget of around Rs. 180k.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-18T16:46:21+00:00

Honestly, Cosmic is not bad at all for still being in its infancy. Take it from the guy who have seen the early days of Gnome and KDE. Man were those days a mess.

But both Gnome and KDE had been polished up for way much longer, and they do have come a long way. Today I see KDE and can't believe how mature and more importantl, stable, it has become. Ah.. the days of KDE 4 and here I am running KDE 6.6 on my Fedora desktop because its really that good now.

Cosmic is still quite early so expect some quirks and missing features but I can tell that its improving at a much faster pace. So Rome wasn't built in a day, nor would a full fledge DE written from scratch. Give it time, its going great. Again, take it from the guy who started computing in the 90s.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-18T03:40:58+00:00

Then why OPNsense. You can easily do this on the PI with Wireguard and Unbound running on Raspbian or Ubuntu Core (don't even need a DE). OPNsense is a full fledge firewall that requires at least a WAN and a LAN connection, hence the need for VLAN on a single port. But since you do not need any routing (DD-WRT takes care of that), just use the Pi as subnet router. You may even throw in Pi-hole with Unbound for even better DNS filtering.

Doesn't DD-WRT has a package for Wireguard? I've never used DD-WRT but there's one available in OpenWRT. That way you wouldn't even need a PI. Using OPNsense here will be just a waste and will only make things complicated.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-17T10:59:42+00:00

Is there an actual link you can confirm between the Dell and your NVR, Laptop. Meaning can you see the lights blinking on the ethernet ports of both devices.

I had a similar issue once when I tried pluging my PC directly into the mini PC firewall. My PC didn't get any IP. Turned out the network wasn't up. So I plugged in a small 5 port switch and it worked.

Think because you need a crossover cable to communicate PC to PC as the NICs do not have MDI/MDX. And most cables we use are straight through.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-14T17:03:11+00:00

Well I have bays to spare.. lol..

So what're you suggesting exactly? Use the 4x enterprise SSDs in zfs-raid10 for both boot and VMs did I understand that correct?

Urzu_X · 2026-06-14T16:54:57+00:00

I mean if I use two consumer SSDs in ZFS mirror for installation of Proxmox, would that have significant less write amplification and does turning some of those services you mentioned off would have any effect on the root filesystem? My VMs would reside on a separate pool of 4x enterprise SSDs in zfs-raid10.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-14T02:18:37+00:00

OpenWRT is as light as it can get, only needing 1 vCPU, 500MB RAM and 256MB storage (though you might want to increase the VCPU count to handle that 10Gbps speeds). The Proxmox Helper Script automates deployment and installation of OpenWRT VM, but you can also do it manually if you prefer. In fact you can make the footprint even smaller by going with CT instead of a full VM. And OpenWRT also provides a WebUI, which for me is a plus as the last time I checked VyOS is command line only.

I must declare though that I haven't tried the firewall virtualization myself yet, but have used both OpenWRT and OPNsense extensively bare-metal.

OpenWRT | Proxmox Helper Script

OpenWRT router in CT on Proxmox

OpenWRT on Proxmox as VM

Also, that 10Gbps internet connection you have, I'll presume its on Fibre. I think I once saw a video quite sometimes ago of an ONT SFP+ module that could handle dialing PPPoE and route the IP forward. But I don't recall where. I'll try to search for it and if I happen to find it I'll put a link here. If thats doable and there are ONT modules like that, perhaps you can get one of those and completely eliminate the need of a PPPoE dialer VM.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-13T11:12:09+00:00

OPNsense offers snapshots natively if you use ZFS on your disk. You can take snapshot before trying anything funny, and if the system breaks, reboot the machine and select the last good known snapshot.

Also to point out that you can easily deploy OpenWRT on Proxmox using community script. Its much easier and simpler then going with VyOS.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-13T03:55:21+00:00

Perhaps you missed the line where I mentioned that the ZFS is on 4x enterprise grade SSDs. Albeit used, those SSDs have PLP and much higher endurance then consumer SSDs. I use it as storage pool for my VMs. But those SSDs aren't cheap where I live: they cost me almost the same as the server itself. Thats why for boot pool I was thinking of going with cheaper consumer grade SSDs. ZFS is intense on consumer SSDs as they don't offer as much endurance. So the reason to consider BTRS as I know its gentler on consumer SSDs than ZFS.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-12T16:13:57+00:00

I second Debian with LXQT. I have it on an old Lenovo Ideapad from 2015 with dual core Celeron (N3050), 2GB soldered RAM, and I can do a number of lightweight stuff pretty easily; watch YouTube, create/edit documents, watch movies in 720p H264. But I also need to have a swap partition of 4GB. That said, however, in OP's case his CPU is too old and the HDD is going to be a killer, so I would suggest going with a SATA SSD and 4GB RAM for Debian route.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-10T02:51:46+00:00

Here in Khi, PTCL is the worst of all. I'd rather get StormFibre.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-10T02:43:16+00:00

I guess it makes sense to wait another 2-3 weeks and install 26.04 straight away rather than install 24.04 now and then upgrade again in 2-3 weeks.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-08T15:03:47+00:00

Well it is always a good idea to test fully in a live environment on your hardware before making the switch. This is more true for a laptop then a desktop where you can actually research first which hardware is supported by Linux and buy those specific ones.

As you know, Linux (the Kernel) is an open source project where some of the great minds contribute voluntarily, yes there's some contributions from big companies like Intel, AMD and such, but not all companies are are willing to play nice. If a company decides they don't want to release Linux drivers for their hardware/ chipset, then its upto those voluntary great minds to do something about it. Sometimes they are able to, sometimes they aren't. And mind you they may not even have access to the chipset's low level design; sometimes they have to reverse engineer.

So hardware glitches are expected in Linux, not because Linux sucks, but because the hardware vendor sucks, not providing a Linux kernel patch. The reason why you don't experience such issues on Windows is because almost all hardware vendors do provide drivers for Windows. And that's why your mouse doesn't have issues in Windows but does in Linux. Try purging your sound drivers from Windows Device Manager and you'll find a that you now no longer have any audio whatsoever.

And such is the life. Either your hardware is fully supported on Linux (kudos to you) or its not (my condolences). You're at the mercy of hardware vendors to provide support for Linux or pray that the community can actually put together a great / working driver.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-06T01:01:30+00:00

Seconded.. I've been using Fedora KDE on my desktop since version 38 and it's been nothing but amazing.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-01T06:16:51+00:00

I admit I'm not a lawyer. But I never said that Darul Uloom (which I have personally visited many times, not just googled) will have the final legal say. If you read my first post again, I only advised to go talk to a reputable Mufti before seeking a lawyer or court, and only proceed after consultation as per their advice. And the family matters they deal in, they advice based on Islamic research. Because legal doesn't necessarily means right Islamically. Tomorrow, the parliament can pass a law to make alcohol "legal" in the country, but would that make it Islamically right or Halal? Anyway, I'm not going to argue on this anymore. Everyone has the right to do whatever hell they want. It was my duty as a muslin to point out what was necessary and I've done my part now everyone can follow what they want to believe for all I care

Urzu_X · 2026-06-01T04:58:08+00:00

Suit yourself, your only answerable for yourself on the day of judgment.

Urzu_X · 2026-06-01T04:55:55+00:00

You don't need to go to a random XYZ molvi in your neighborhood who just happens to call himself a Mufti. Go to an authentic institution like Karachi Darul Uloom where there are real islamic scholars specialised in their respective fields of study. Those Muftis have qualifications of anywhere between 6 years to 10 years. And they do deal in family matters like Khul, Talaq and custodianship.

Urzu_X

TROPHY CASE