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The original was posted on /r/homelab by /u/inlineaviation on 2026-03-29 01:30:50+00:00.
Hey everyone,
Been lurking for a bit, seems like a nice group, so I’d like to get a little assistance if possible. I have a small business that I’ve had a FortiGate 50E that has an EoL of November 14, 2026, and a TP-Link managed switch. I currently pay a local company to manage all of this for me, but I have had the ability to log into the FortiGate and usually look around so I can understand how my network is setup. I’m currently in a degoogle/demicroslop phase and am generally very happy and pretty much everything is working. I’m trying to get away from Active Domain, moved my workstation to Linux Mint, remote into a Windows 11 machine for the software that I need that is only Windows compatible.
Anyway, I want to use Opnsense on a mini appliance, maybe a Glovary Firewall or something similar. At my office I have 4 workstations, 3 printers, a couple Ubiquiti access points, some PoE, 2 Synology NAS devices, a very old Pi Hole (that I think has given up the ghost) and 2 VoIP phones. It actually looks in that photo that the old VoIP modem is still there, plugged in, drawing power. Lovely. That EdgeWater is probably the new one.
Anyway, I don’t need anything crazy. I download PDFs from banks for a living… not live streaming on twitch or uploading large videos to YouTube. I was thinking of getting one of these appliances, setting it up at my house and replacing the router I have at home I think is overwhelmed with all the wireless devices and half dozen computers. Aside from Reddit (homelabs, opnsense), Serve The Home, is there anywhere else I should be looking.
Looks like I should just get a mini pc, install Opnsense, poke around a bit, start adding some devices, test speeds, and go from there. Oh, would I need to run a dedicated Pi Hole still for my DNS sinkhole? Do I need to buy a new managed switch (the current one was bought the same time as the 50E, but I’ve never really known a switch to just die completely… maybe a port here or there)? Anything I can do to understand my VoIP any better? I remote into my office a lot via NoMachine. Anything else I should be thinking about?
