Croissants is Intrusion Detection and Prevention System (IDPS) which requires 3 network interfaces and CPU with AVX2, Zotac ZBox CI549 or MI549 is another good choice for home and/or SOHO users. It's small footprint and Intel Core i5-7300U (Dual Core/4 Hyperthreading) is suitable for home and/or SOHO users for IDPS, like Croissants.
It comes with 2 network interfaces and one Thunderbolt 3 Type-C port which can connect to an adaptor to become another network interface. It also can install up to 32GB DDR4 memory. In my opinion, it can handle up to 1000Mbps bandwidth with low to medium traffic flow even I did not test it at my side at the moment. However, I will purchase one for the test when it is available.
On the other hand, you can install pfsense with suricata plugin on it when Hyperscan is available for FreeBSD or pfsense. pfsense requires 2 network interfaces only.
Finally, the difference between CI549 and MI549 is that CI549 is passive cooling while MI549 is active.
That's all! See you.
Reference
Zotac ZBox Comparison 2017
Showing posts with label ZOTAC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ZOTAC. Show all posts
Monday, November 27, 2017
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
HOWTO : Build An Affordable Intrusion Detection And Prevention System For Home Users
What is Intrusion Detection And Prevention System?
Intrusion detection and prevention system (IDPS) monitors incoming and outgoing traffic on your network and blocks the malicious traffic (packets) based on rules (blacklists).
Why home users need IDPS?
Not only big companies need IDPS but also home users as long as they are connecting to the internet. Almost all home users installed anti-virus but it is not enough. They do need more protection against the cyber criminals.
However, most IDPS appliances are very expensive for home users. Most open source solutions are also demanding for them as they do not familiar with networking and technology.
What is Almond Croissants and Why?
Almond Croissants is an open source intrusion detection and prevention system which is based on Suricata engine. Suricata is the next-generation IDPS engine with a lot of outstanding features.
Users of Almond Croissants are not required to be familiar with networking and technology. It is designed for them in mind. Not only that, it is designed for low-end hardware too. It is really "Plug, Play and Forget!".
What are the key features of Almond Croissants?
- Block ports and vulnerabilities scanning
- Block known exploitation on vulnerable systems
- Block known malicious IP addresses to access your systems
- Block known source of Secure Shell (SSH) brute forcing
- Block The Onion Router (TOR) to access your systems
- Prevent from accessing known malicious sites with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates
- Prevent from being infected by known virus and malware
- Block known annoying advertising servers
- Easy and straight forward analysis with charts on web interfaces
- Compatible with Bittorrent and 4K video streaming
- Ultra-low latency for online gaming
- Compatible with Windows, Linux, macOS, Apple iOS and Android
- Ultra-low latency throughput that drives your network to a limit
- No subscription fee
- More protection for web servers
- More protection from known malware
- Block known phishing sites
- Automatically update and upgrade
- Plug, Play and Forget!
What hardware is required?
If you have a small family with 4 members and have about 200-250Mbps bandwidth, Zotac Mini PC CI323 (Intel Celeron N3150 with 16GB RAM) is recommended. Meanwhile, you may also require a USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet dongle. Yes, 16GB RAM. The vendor states that it supports up to 8GB RAM, however, you can install a total of 16GB RAM on it. A 320GB hard drive is also required. It requires a total of 3 network interface cards. The price of the system is below $400-USD. It is low power consumption for long run.
More powerful CPU and more memory are recommended for demanding situation. Almond Croissants is running on dedicated hardware. The minimum requirements for Almond Croissants is 2-4 CPU threads and 16GB RAM.
How to install?
Since ultra-low latency of Almond Croissants, it is recommended to put Almond Croissants between modem and router. Furthermore, you can install it between router and switch too. However, if you have a wireless router, it is recommended to put Almond Croissants in front of the wireless router.
First of all, you need to install Ubuntu Server (LTS edition) on the box. SSH server is recommended to be installed for remote management inside your network. It may need 8 or more hours to install Almond Croissants on Zotac Mini PC CI323. Make sure the box is connecting to the internet as it fetches the packages and data from various servers in the internet.
The installation procedure is well documented on the Almond Croissants official site. It is easy but it kills time.
After the installation, you can plug the Zotac Mini PC CI323 between modem and router. The USB Ethernet Card is connecting to switch. A reboot is required. It needs about 10 minutes to let all the rules and data load into the memory once boot up.
What's next?
Make sure firewall on your router is enabled and do not allow SSH port to be accessed outside your network unless it is well protected. Anti-virus program to be installed on every computer is optional but is recommended.
For further protection on your laptop and smartphone outside your home, you are required to setup a VPN inside your network. When you are using laptop at coffee shop or using smartphone on the road, you can connect to your VPN and your connection will be protected by Almond Croissants.
All rules and upgrade will be conducted during mid-night between 0100 and 0800 hours. Therefore, the box requires running 24/7/365 and server grade hardware is recommended.
See also
Almond Croissants - Intrusion Detection And Prevention System
Zotac Mini PC C Series
Suricata IDPS Engine
Hardening Mobile Devices with Intrusion Prevention System
Know Your Enemies and Know Yourself
OpenVPN official site
How To Set Up an OpenVPN Server on Ubuntu 16.04
Configure OpenVPN on Ubuntu 16.04
Intel Celeron N3150 Specifications
That's all! See you.
Intrusion detection and prevention system (IDPS) monitors incoming and outgoing traffic on your network and blocks the malicious traffic (packets) based on rules (blacklists).
Why home users need IDPS?
Not only big companies need IDPS but also home users as long as they are connecting to the internet. Almost all home users installed anti-virus but it is not enough. They do need more protection against the cyber criminals.
However, most IDPS appliances are very expensive for home users. Most open source solutions are also demanding for them as they do not familiar with networking and technology.
What is Almond Croissants and Why?
Almond Croissants is an open source intrusion detection and prevention system which is based on Suricata engine. Suricata is the next-generation IDPS engine with a lot of outstanding features.
Users of Almond Croissants are not required to be familiar with networking and technology. It is designed for them in mind. Not only that, it is designed for low-end hardware too. It is really "Plug, Play and Forget!".
What are the key features of Almond Croissants?
- Block ports and vulnerabilities scanning
- Block known exploitation on vulnerable systems
- Block known malicious IP addresses to access your systems
- Block known source of Secure Shell (SSH) brute forcing
- Block The Onion Router (TOR) to access your systems
- Prevent from accessing known malicious sites with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates
- Prevent from being infected by known virus and malware
- Block known annoying advertising servers
- Easy and straight forward analysis with charts on web interfaces
- Compatible with Bittorrent and 4K video streaming
- Ultra-low latency for online gaming
- Compatible with Windows, Linux, macOS, Apple iOS and Android
- Ultra-low latency throughput that drives your network to a limit
- No subscription fee
- More protection for web servers
- More protection from known malware
- Block known phishing sites
- Automatically update and upgrade
- Plug, Play and Forget!
What hardware is required?
If you have a small family with 4 members and have about 200-250Mbps bandwidth, Zotac Mini PC CI323 (Intel Celeron N3150 with 16GB RAM) is recommended. Meanwhile, you may also require a USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet dongle. Yes, 16GB RAM. The vendor states that it supports up to 8GB RAM, however, you can install a total of 16GB RAM on it. A 320GB hard drive is also required. It requires a total of 3 network interface cards. The price of the system is below $400-USD. It is low power consumption for long run.
More powerful CPU and more memory are recommended for demanding situation. Almond Croissants is running on dedicated hardware. The minimum requirements for Almond Croissants is 2-4 CPU threads and 16GB RAM.
How to install?
Since ultra-low latency of Almond Croissants, it is recommended to put Almond Croissants between modem and router. Furthermore, you can install it between router and switch too. However, if you have a wireless router, it is recommended to put Almond Croissants in front of the wireless router.
First of all, you need to install Ubuntu Server (LTS edition) on the box. SSH server is recommended to be installed for remote management inside your network. It may need 8 or more hours to install Almond Croissants on Zotac Mini PC CI323. Make sure the box is connecting to the internet as it fetches the packages and data from various servers in the internet.
The installation procedure is well documented on the Almond Croissants official site. It is easy but it kills time.
After the installation, you can plug the Zotac Mini PC CI323 between modem and router. The USB Ethernet Card is connecting to switch. A reboot is required. It needs about 10 minutes to let all the rules and data load into the memory once boot up.
What's next?
Make sure firewall on your router is enabled and do not allow SSH port to be accessed outside your network unless it is well protected. Anti-virus program to be installed on every computer is optional but is recommended.
For further protection on your laptop and smartphone outside your home, you are required to setup a VPN inside your network. When you are using laptop at coffee shop or using smartphone on the road, you can connect to your VPN and your connection will be protected by Almond Croissants.
All rules and upgrade will be conducted during mid-night between 0100 and 0800 hours. Therefore, the box requires running 24/7/365 and server grade hardware is recommended.
See also
Almond Croissants - Intrusion Detection And Prevention System
Zotac Mini PC C Series
Suricata IDPS Engine
Hardening Mobile Devices with Intrusion Prevention System
Know Your Enemies and Know Yourself
OpenVPN official site
How To Set Up an OpenVPN Server on Ubuntu 16.04
Configure OpenVPN on Ubuntu 16.04
Intel Celeron N3150 Specifications
That's all! See you.
Thursday, September 04, 2014
REVIEW : ZOTAC ZBOX C1320 Nano Plus
I am going to test ZOTAC ZBOX C1320 Nano Plus with Kali Linux 1.0.9 64bit.
CPU : Intel Celeron N2930 (Quad-core, 1.83GHz, up to 2.16GHz)
GPU : Intel HD Graphic
RAM : 1 x DDR3L-1333 SO-DIMM (2GB Included)
HDD : 1 x 2.5-inch SATA 3.0Gb/s (64GB SSD Included)
Ethernet : Realtek Gigabit LAN
Wireless : IEEE802.11ac Intel Wifi
Bluetooth : 4.0
Remarks : 1 x SD/SDHC/SDXC Card Reader, 1 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x eSATA, 4 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0
You can select UEFI or BIOS when doing setup. You also can disable the Secure Boot.
It is no problem to boot up Kali Linux 1.0.9 64bit.However, the wifi is partially working. It detects the signal but cannot work. The bluetooth is malfunction too. 1080p MKV video cannot be played on default Kali Linux install. The CPU has no Hyper-Threading feature. However, this box can use standard DDR3 RAM up to 8GB. You are not required to use DDR3L RAM. Meanwhile, the sound card is quite good.
This box is working very well with VMWare Workstation 10.x (64-bit). The 64bit guest virtual machine is working properly.
The power consumption is between 13W and 20W.
I recommend this box as its low power consumption with high performance.
Update :
HD video playback with the following drivers. However, the chipset is too new and it cannot be loaded properly :
That's all! See you.
CPU : Intel Celeron N2930 (Quad-core, 1.83GHz, up to 2.16GHz)
GPU : Intel HD Graphic
RAM : 1 x DDR3L-1333 SO-DIMM (2GB Included)
HDD : 1 x 2.5-inch SATA 3.0Gb/s (64GB SSD Included)
Ethernet : Realtek Gigabit LAN
Wireless : IEEE802.11ac Intel Wifi
Bluetooth : 4.0
Remarks : 1 x SD/SDHC/SDXC Card Reader, 1 x HDMI, 1 x DisplayPort, 1 x eSATA, 4 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0
You can select UEFI or BIOS when doing setup. You also can disable the Secure Boot.
It is no problem to boot up Kali Linux 1.0.9 64bit.
This box is working very well with VMWare Workstation 10.x (64-bit). The 64bit guest virtual machine is working properly.
The power consumption is between 13W and 20W.
I recommend this box as its low power consumption with high performance.
Update :
HD video playback with the following drivers. However, the chipset is too new and it cannot be loaded properly :
sudo apt-get install i965-va-driver libva-intel-vaapi-driver vainfoThat's all! See you.
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