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Due to the nature of deep packet analysis and detailed drill-down reporting functionality, Sensei requires more hardware resources than a standard L3-L4 firewall.
Starting from Sensei 1.5 release, you can offload your reporting database to an external system. This allows you to be able to run Sensei on systems with a constrained amount of RAM.
It is recommended that you check if your Ethernet adapter functions well with netmap.
CPU & Memory
Because the analytics module relies on Elasticsearch to process large amounts of data, the amount of the memory available in the system is crucial for the overall performance of Sensei.
If the number of active devices are more than 250 and the sustained WAN bandwidth is higher than 100 Mbps, we do not recommend deploying Sensei as a virtual guest since resources in virtual environments are generally shared between guest systems.
Below is the recommended minimum hardware requirements for Sensei based on the number of devices and the amount of sustained bandwidth.
We recommend at least dual core (preferable 4 core if you also host database on the firewall) cpu system. Single core cpu score is more important than having lots of cpu cores; for that, a Quad Core i7 PC system is more likely to perform better than a 12-core intel xeon server system.
|
# Active Devices |
Maximum WAN Bandwidth |
Minimum Memory |
Minimum CPU |
|
0 - 25 |
200 Mbps |
4 GB |
A Dual-Core CPU (x86_64 compatible, single core PassMark score of 200) Note: Deciso A10s and AMD G-SERIES SOC GX Series, Protectli/Qotom Celeron J Series are compatible |
|
25-100 |
500 Mbps |
4 GB |
Intel Dual-Core i3 2.0 GHz (2 Cores, 4 Threads) or equivalent |
|
100-250 |
1 Gbps |
8 GB |
Intel Dual-Core i5 2.2 GHz (2 Cores, 4 Threads) or equivalent |
|
250-1000 |
1-2 Gbps |
16 GB |
Intel Dual-Core i5 3.20 GHz (2 Cores, 4 Threads) or equivalent |
|
1000-2000 |
1-2 Gbps |
32 GB |
Intel Quad-Core i7 3.40 GHz (4 Cores, 8 Threads) or equivalent |
|
2000+ |
1-2 Gbps |
64GB |
Intel Quad-Core i7 3.40 GHz (4 Cores, 8 Threads) or equivalent |
Ethernet Adapter
Sensei uses a FreeBSD subsystem called netmap(4) to access raw Ethernet frames. With FreeBSD 11 (OPNsense version <= 20.1) this software can be very particular in terms of proper driver compatibility.
Intel based adapters, particularly em(4) and igb(4), are observed to perform well in terms of stability and performance.
Sunny Valley Networks is sponsoring developments on this project so you can expect netmap(4) will better support a wide range of Ethernet drivers.