UDPTCP 6-Port Firewall Mini PC

Six ports suit homes and small offices that segment by cable rather than by VLAN. Plenty of cheap unmanaged switches, cameras and smart-home hubs have no idea what a VLAN tag is. A separate port per segment keeps them apart without a managed switch in the middle.

The I226 is native hardware on FreeBSD and Linux through the igc driver. OPNsense, OpenWrt, Linux and ESXi are the systems UDPTCP names, and pfSense runs on the same chips from its 2.7 release onward.

• Install a current release; older installers predate stable igc support.
• Label the ports on the case before the first boot, since the OS numbers them in its own order.
• If one port drops link now and then, disabling Energy Efficient Ethernet on it is the usual first fix.

Dual WAN with automatic failover is the headline use. OPNsense and pfSense both handle gateway groups: the backup ISP takes over when the primary stops answering pings, and traffic moves back when it recovers. More layouts sit under N100 firewall mini PCs.

On a firewall OS, bridged traffic is also filtered traffic unless you tune it otherwise, so a file copy between two bridged ports competes with routing and VPN for CPU time. Four efficiency cores cope with light use, but two machines copying at 2.5GbE across a bridge will show it.

1. Give each network its own port and route between them. That is what the box is built for.
2. Hang a small switch off the LAN port for rooms with several wired devices.
3. Bridge two ports only for low-traffic devices, such as a printer beside the router.
4. For a faster link to a busy switch or server, bond two ports with LACP instead of bridging.

The six-port layout pays off when each port carries its own network and the router decides what crosses between them. Treated that way, the extra ports are the most useful thing about the box. Treated as a switch substitute, they are the least.

That same logic applies to IDS. Suricata inspecting six busy interfaces asks far more of four small cores than one WAN link does. Run it on the WAN and the DMZ first, then widen coverage only if the CPU graph stays calm.

UDPTCP does not state a memory or SSD configuration for this model, so plan on supplying both. One DDR4 slot runs the N100's single memory channel at full width, and the N100 is specified for up to 16GB. For a firewall, 8GB is plenty.

• M.2 2280: NVMe on PCIe 3.0 x1, roughly 985MB/s, far more than a router needs.
• SATA 3.0: a 2.5-inch SSD for logs, packet captures or a second OS.
• M.2 2230: a wireless slot wired for CNVi by default.
• COM: a serial header for console access when the network is down.

The serial port is a quiet win. A router that loses its network config is hard to reach over the network, and a console cable gets you back in without a monitor. HDMI, DisplayPort and USB-C cover the screen route, three 4K@60Hz outputs in all.

Auto Power On, Wake-on-LAN, PXE boot and GPIO headers sit in the BIOS, reached with the Delete key. Auto Power On is the one to enable on day one, so the box restarts by itself after a power cut. Chip limits are listed under N100 specs.

UDPTCP does not state a cooling method for the CNC-021. Confirm whether a fan is fitted before it goes in a bedroom or a living room. Idle power rises with each linked port; hedged ranges for firewall boxes sit under N100 power consumption.

• Pick the CNC-021 for dual WAN and four separate networks on physical ports.
• Pick the oaknode MGNASN for two 10GbE SFP+ cages and an LTE slot.
• Pick the CWWK four-port for a configured build with memory and NVMe fitted.
• Pick UDPTCP's industrial box for four ports plus RS232, GPIO and a 4G slot.

The parts list is short: one DDR4 SO-DIMM, one M.2 2280 NVMe drive, and optionally a 2.5-inch SATA SSD. Budget memory is fine here, since the box runs a single channel at 3200MHz whatever you fit. Start with 8GB, move to 16GB if Suricata or several containers join the router.

The six-port layout is the reason to buy. The DDR4 slot, the serial header and the dual storage are what make it pleasant to live with.