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Dozlzyp 4-Port Firewall Appliance
Fanless firewall · 4× i226-V 2.5GbE · barebone · three I/O builds

Dozlzyp 4-Port Firewall Appliance

The Dozlzyp X4C-XL stretches the usual finned firewall brick to 178mm for more cooling surface, then fills it with four Intel i226-V ports, two NVMe slots and TPM 2.0. Three builds trade USB ports for serial consoles.

  • ProcessorIntel N100, 4 cores, up to 3.4GHz, 6W TDP
  • Network4× 2.5GbE, Intel i226-V
  • Memory1× DDR5 SO-DIMM 4800MHz, up to 32GB
  • Storage2× M.2 2280 NVMe, PCIe 3.0
  • CaseAluminium, fanless, 178.3 × 135.6 × 55mm
  • SecurityTPM 2.0, AES-NI
Buy it for
  • pfSense or OPNsense on a mirrored NVMe pair
  • Headless routers managed over a serial console
  • A silent box that runs 24/7 in a warm spot
Skip it for
  • Buyers who want memory and storage fitted
  • Tight shelves: it is longer and taller than most firewall boxes
See today’s price
Configurations

Three X4C-XL I/O builds

HDMI + DP · 8× USB · Wi-Fi slot
This config
Updated · USB-C · 4× USB · RJ45 console
This config
6× USB · 2× COM
This config

Three builds: 8× USB, an RJ45 console, or two COM ports

The X4C-XL comes in three builds that share the board, the four i226-V ports and the case, and differ only in the rear and front I/O. The base build is USB-heavy. The two others give up USB ports for serial consoles, which is the more interesting trade for a router.

BuildVideoUSBSerialBest for
BaseHDMI + DP8 (2× USB 3.2)NoneRouter that may become a small server
UpdatedHDMI + DP + USB-C41× RJ45 consoleHeadless router managed like network gear
Dual COMHDMI + DP62× COMRouter plus a serial device, UPS or controller

An RJ45 console port is the same style of connector enterprise switches and routers use. A standard rollover console cable plugs in, and the router's text console appears on a laptop terminal with no monitor or keyboard involved. When a firewall rule locks you out of the web interface, that port is how you get back in.

  • Pick the base build if the box may later host a UPS, a Zigbee stick and a backup drive.
  • Pick the RJ45-console build if it lives in a rack or cupboard with no screen nearby.
  • Pick the dual-COM build if you need one serial port for the console and another for equipment.

The updated build is also the only one with USB-C. Paired with HDMI and DisplayPort, that makes three video-capable outputs, useful if the box ever retires to desk duty.

All three share the same firewall hardware underneath, so routing capability is identical. More on laying out a four-port router lives under N100 firewall mini PCs.

Hardware

What’s inside

SpecValue
ModelX4C-XL
ProcessorIntel N100, 4 cores / 4 threads, 64-bit, up to 3.4GHz
TDP6W
GraphicsIntel UHD Graphics
Memory slot1× SO-DIMM DDR5 4800MHz, up to 32GB
Storage2× M.2 2280 NVMe, PCIe 3.0
Wireless slot1× M.2 2230 for a Wi-Fi card
Ethernet4× 2.5GbE, Intel i226-V
VideoHDMI 2.0 + DP, dual 4K@60Hz
USB8 ports (2× USB 3.2); 4 or 6 on the console builds
SerialNone, one RJ45 COM, or two COM ports, by build
SecurityTPM 2.0, AES-NI
BIOS featuresWatchdog, Auto Power On, RTC wake, PXE boot, Wake-on-LAN
VirtualisationESXi, Proxmox VE
CaseFull aluminium alloy, fanless, lengthened for heat dissipation
Dimensions178.3 × 135.6 × 55mm
Supported systemspfSense (preloaded OS type), OPNsense, Untangle, OpenWrt
In the boxMini PC, power adapter, cord, M.2 2230-to-2280 adapter board
ConfigurationBarebone: no RAM, no SSD

A 178mm aluminium case built for 24/7 passive cooling

Dozlzyp lengthened the chassis on purpose. At 178.3 × 135.6 × 55mm it is longer and taller than the typical four-port brick, and every extra millimetre is aluminium fin surface. With no fan, surface area is the only cooling there is, so a bigger case is the direct way to run cooler.

The N100's 6W TDP is easy to cool at idle, and routers idle most of the time. The extra surface earns its keep under sustained load, such as Suricata inspecting traffic, a WireGuard tunnel saturating a fast uplink, or a VM running beside the router. The case also works as a quiet 24/7 desktop: add a keyboard, mouse and screen and it becomes a silent workstation.

  • Leave clear air above the fins; do not lay anything flat on top.
  • Wall-mount it with the fins vertical for the best convection.
  • Keep it away from a modem or PoE switch that dumps its own heat.
  • Measure the shelf: 55mm tall and 178mm long is more than most boxes.

A cooler chip also holds its burst clock longer before the firmware pulls it back, so the extra fin area is not only about comfort. It keeps throughput steady during long transfers.

Warm is normal. A fanless aluminium case runs warm to the touch under load. That is the heat leaving the chip through the fins, which is the whole design.

Wall power on boxes like this depends on linked ports, the SSDs and memory more than on the chip alone. Hedged idle ranges for four-port firewalls sit under N100 power consumption, and heat behaviour in passive cases is covered under fanless N100 mini PCs.

Market position

How it fits the lineup

N100 mini PC models by type, September 2026. Highlighted: Dozlzyp 4-Port Firewall Appliance.

Two NVMe slots, one DDR5 slot and TPM 2.0

Storage is two M.2 2280 NVMe slots on PCIe 3.0, no adapters needed. That makes a mirrored ZFS boot pool straightforward, the configuration that keeps a router running when one SSD dies. Memory is one DDR5 SO-DIMM at 4800MHz, up to 32GB.

pfSense, OPNsense and Proxmox all install to a ZFS mirror from their standard installers. Two small, identical NVMe drives are enough; a router writes little, and endurance is rarely the issue. The second slot can hold a larger drive for VM disks instead if you prefer capacity over redundancy.

  1. Memory: 8GB for a dedicated firewall, 16GB with IDS, 32GB for a Proxmox host.
  2. Storage: two matching NVMe drives for a mirror, or one boot drive plus one data drive.
  3. Wi-Fi: an M.2 2230 card if you want wireless on OpenWrt; wire an access point on pfSense or OPNsense.

The box includes an M.2 2230-to-2280 adapter board, which lets a short 2230 SSD sit securely in a full-length 2280 slot. Handy if you have a small drive pulled from a handheld or a laptop.

TPM 2.0 is rare on firewall barebones. It meets the Windows 11 requirement if the box ever becomes a desktop, and on Linux it can hold disk-encryption keys so an encrypted drive unlocks at boot without a typed passphrase. The N100 also carries AES-NI for IPsec and OpenVPN. Deeper chip limits are listed under N100 specs.

Other options

Three other routes

Dozlzyp against oaknode and CWWK four-port boxes

The four i226-V ports are the common denominator of this whole class, and Dozlzyp names pfSense, Untangle and OPNsense as tested systems. The differences are elsewhere: case size, serial options, TPM and how storage is arranged. The X4C-XL wins on cooling surface and console choices.

The oaknode appliance has a SATA port and a 48GB memory rating that Dozlzyp does not, plus an optional fan header. The CWWK box comes configured with DDR5 and NVMe if you would rather not buy parts. The MOGINSOK appliance is also configured and fanless, though current units carry an N150.

  • Pick Dozlzyp for the largest passive case, TPM 2.0 and serial console builds.
  • Pick oaknode for SATA storage and memory beyond 32GB.
  • Pick CWWK for a ready-to-boot configuration.

The BIOS covers what an always-on router needs: a hardware watchdog to reboot a hung system, Auto Power On after an outage, RTC wake, PXE boot and Wake-on-LAN. ESXi and Proxmox VE are both supported for anyone running the firewall as a VM.

The i226-V runs on FreeBSD's native igc driver, so a current pfSense or OPNsense image finds all four ports at install. If a port ever drops link intermittently, disabling Energy Efficient Ethernet on it is the usual first fix for this chip.

Pick the build by its I/O first. The parts list then stays short: one DDR5 SO-DIMM and one or two M.2 2280 NVMe drives. Check that your shelf or cabinet has room for a 178mm-long box with air above it. For the router-plus-server route, N100 home servers covers the trade-offs.

FAQ

Owner questions

Which Dozlzyp X4C-XL build fits which job?

Only the I/O. The base build has 8 USB ports; the updated build adds USB-C and an RJ45 console with 4 USB; the third has 6 USB and two COM ports.

Does the Dozlzyp firewall include RAM and an SSD?

No. It is a barebone; add one DDR5 SO-DIMM (up to 32GB) and one or two M.2 2280 NVMe drives.

Is it fanless?

Yes. The full-aluminium case is lengthened to 178.3mm to add cooling surface, and there is no fan.

Does it have TPM?

Yes, TPM 2.0, along with AES-NI, watchdog, Auto Power On and PXE boot.