u/420Tax

Dell surplus deployed as a security-focused business network.

The upgrade began when my Netgate 1100 started running out of capacity. It was an excellent entry-level firewall, but enabling more advanced services—particularly IDS/IPS with Suricata, expanded logging, and increasingly complex network segmentation pushed the hardware beyond its practical limits. I replaced it with a retired Dell OptiPlex 5040 running OPNsense, which provided substantially more processing power, memory, and expansion capability. That change became the catalyst for building the larger security-focused infrastructure that followed.

• Dell Dell OptiPlex 5040 running OPNsense and Suricata as the primary firewall and IDS/IPS
• Dell Precision T7910 running Unraid
• Centralized logging stack with Graylog and OpenSearch
• Functioning Fusion-io ioDrive2 enterprise SSD for high-speed log storage
• Dual-NIC configuration separating production and lab networks

The cable management is poor, and the server cooling is decidedly janky, but the system has been in continuous service for five years and has proven reliable.

I am always modifying and improving it. This is my most ambitious iteration yet.

Dell surplus deployed as a security focused business network. Opnsense suricata on repurposed Win 10 retired optiplex. Precision. T7910 running unraid with logging docker stack, functioning iodrive2, and dual nic (lab and network). Poor cable management and jenky cooling on server. Deployed 5 years. Works well.. Always modifying. Current iteration most ambitious yet.