Ars Technica took router modding to a new level this year; why just flash your router with OpenWRT when you can make one from a mini PC? The original was a dual gigabit NIC mini-PC with a 1037u Ivy Bridge Celeron from Alibaba, Homebrew 2.0 is sourced from Amazon, has four Intel gigabit LAN ports and runs on a J1900 Bay Trail Celeron. You simply install an inexpensive SSD is installed in the mini-PC, set up OpenWRT and configure your network settings. In this latest update Ars compares their homebrew routers to several retail routers to see how they fall in terms of performance. Check it out to see how they fare and possibly to learn a bit about network benchmarks.
"Famously around the Ars forums, this problem soon evolved into our homebrew router initiative. In January, I showed my math as a DIY-Linux router outpaced popular off-the-shelf options like the Netgear Nighthawk X6 and the Linksys N600 EA-2750. And in August, I shared the steps necessary to build one of your own."
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Why use OpenWRT if you can
Why use OpenWRT if you can setup something with more features like pfSense?
Because OpenWRT, and Even
Because OpenWRT, and Even Linux in general, has more advanced queue management because initiatives like CeroWRT https://www.bufferbloat.net/p rojects/cerowrt/wiki/. I would definitely not go with anything else until the BSDs catch up.
Interesting. You don’t need a
Interesting. You don’t need a fancy mini-pc with a ton of ethernet ports though. Two is plenty (WAN and LAN), and I think you can even do it with one if you do some tricks. Way back in the day, I just used plain-ass Linux on one of my retired machines with an extra NIC thrown in. Now I run Untangle on my home server as a virtual machine for my wired stuff, and a separate wireless router with DHCP for all my wireless, or as a fallback. If you’re going to use an Untangle VM though, don’t use the virtual appliance. It has an 80GB virtual disk, when it really only needs 8GB or less. I guess they went with 80 because an 80GB drive is part of the recommended specs.
I’ve played with OpenWRT, ClearOS and pfsense in the past, but I felt that Untangle was easier to use, with decent logging. I might check back with OpenWRT though. I don’t remember why I ditched that, and it’s probably way better by now. My main issue with Untangle is how inflexible its VPN stuff is.
More than two ports makes
More than two ports makes sense if someone doesn’t want to deal with vLan management, but they have separate networks for something like their home office gear and typical consumer device access, they’re hosting something and want a pseudo DMZ without additional firewall hardware in between, or even just something as simple as less restrictive NAT for a games console while protecting their rest of their network.
When you’re limited to just two ports, you are always more likely to end up with a more complicated hardware stack.
Oh yeah. Hadn’t thunk of
Oh yeah. Hadn’t thunk of that. I didn’t think you could have different IP addresses per port on OpenWRT though? I thought you needed vLAN’s? Maybe it was a limitation of the router I was running it on, or they changed it, or I could just be ignorant. I haven’t played with vLAN’s though. I do have a 4 port ethernet card to separate out 3 different local networks on my Untangle VM, but I’m weird like that.
yes yes but i have 12mbps
yes yes but i have 12mbps adsl at my home and no way to upgrade it .
At what speed a 40€ router should limit ?