Ask HN: Can I safely run a made-in-China Single Board Computer as my firewall?

Re:Ask HN: Can I safely run a made-in-China Single Board Com... by LinuxBender on Friday April 14, 2023 @09:02AM (#35569116)

passively cooled single board computer that's manufactured in a trustworthy country.

Not cheap but I use Protectli firewalls [1]. They have the option to be reloaded with either the Coreboot or AMI firmware. They have 2 to 6 NIC's depending on the model. They are passively cooled but have fast processors so that people can run VPN's at wire speed. They are basically a mini-PC optimized to be used as Firewalls and Network-to-Network VPN's. The NIC's are Intel.

[1] - https://protectli.com/solutions/firewall/

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Re:Ask HN: Can I safely run a made-in-China Single Board Com... by chatmasta on Friday April 14, 2023 @09:05AM (#35569161)

Oh cool, those do look nice, thanks! I didn't find this company in the hours I spent researching this yesterday.

They look similar in configuration and price to Fitlet [0]. Personally, $300 is more than I'd like to spend, but perhaps that's the price for a trustworthy and sufficiently powerful setup.

[0] https://fit-iot.com/web/products/fitlet3/

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Re:Ask HN: Can I safely run a made-in-China Single Board Com... by aborsy on Friday April 14, 2023 @03:01PM (#35573378)

I thought Protectli boxes are cheaper mini PCs from AliExpress (Qotom and similar boxes). Protectli sets them up (flashes the firmware in the case of coreboot, and installs the OS), and adds support.

But otherwise boxes are pretty good.

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Re:Ask HN: Can I safely run a made-in-China Single Board Com... by kjs3 on Friday April 14, 2023 @06:04PM (#35575407)

I picked up a Protectli 4-port box (FW4C) recently. So far it's excellent. I did however think/assume it was made in China.

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