Enterprise-grade network protection, on a Raspberry Pi
The problem
Educational networks are an attractive, under-defended target: hundreds of devices, limited IT budget, and no dedicated security staff watching traffic around the clock. Commercial intrusion detection appliances exist, but they're priced and licensed for enterprises, not schools.
The gap wasn't a lack of good ideas about security. It was that every practical option assumed a budget and a team this environment didn't have.
The approach
The solution splits the problem in two: a small, cheap device that watches traffic where it enters the network, and a separate server that does the heavy analytical thinking. Without ever making the network wait on it.
The one non-negotiable requirement was that security monitoring could never become the reason the network felt slow. If protecting the network made it worse to use, staff would eventually just unplug it.
- A Raspberry Pi sits inline, watching every packet as it passes
- Traffic is streamed to a remote server for deeper analysis and threat detection
- Verdicts (block or allow) are enforced locally on the Pi. No waiting on a round trip
- One live dashboard gives staff a single place to see what's happening, with no specialist required
The outcome
- <1ms
- Added inline latency
- 24/7
- Autonomous monitoring
- €0
- Per-seat licensing cost
The network gets continuous, real-time threat detection and automatic blocking, staff get one dashboard instead of a pile of logs to interpret, and the entire system runs on hardware that costs less than a single seat of most commercial alternatives. With nothing recurring to license.