Last week I got a local (for now) VPN set up between the user subnet and the admin ui subnet. I believe that I could simply change the firewall rules but I'd rather keep things as secure and simple as possible. That said, I really should test that just to make sure I'm correctly understanding the configuration. 

I also ordered a full height adapter bracket for the i350-T4, as I had to remove the included shorty for it to seat properly in the PCIe slot. This means that any movement of the attached ethernet cables may jar the card loose - not good. It should be here within a week or so. I returned the original PT card and received a refund. 

I also ordered a 3.5 to 2.5 hdd adapter 2-pack to have some decent storage, and I'm looking for an El Cheapo or free monitor to mount on my rack with my currently in disuse kvm (though not rack mount). I have a couple local and ebay leads almost within budget, though at this point the scope has expanded a bit. I'm leaning towards being lenient with this build by skimping on other projects. 

Finally, I've been considering the possibility that many of the issues that I had been attributing to the USB or Dupont to USB adapter may instead have been caused by the old NIC. I'll probably power everything down and try to boot again with the USB mounted internally.

Once the machine is physically sound, the next phase is swapping the pfSense machine with the current router/AP and putting it in bridge mode exclusively as an AP. I'd eventually like to flash it and my older DIR-655 with OpenWRT and DD-WRT but until all this quarantine business is over, I can't risk the wireless being down. Ideally that would allow for full VLAN options across both repurposed devices, but I haven't been able to confirm support as even the flashing instructions are sketchy at best. That might have to be its own hackaday project. Till next time.