| Products > Networking & Wireless |
| Buying a router or making one with X86 computer |
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| soldar:
--- Quote from: AG6QR on December 21, 2024, 05:55:44 pm --- For my router/firewall, I'm using a Protectli Vault FW4b, a nice small low-power fanless x86 computer with four ethernet ports. It's available with various combinations of RAM and SSD. Mine has 8G RAM and 120G SSD, but in hindsight, 4G RAM and 32G SSD would have been more than enough. I've installed OPNSense software on it, which gives excellent control and visibility to set it up for multiple VLANs, with firewall rules to do whatever I want. I'm using a Unifi U6 for my home's WiFi -- it's centrally mounted in the ceiling of a hallway. If you're in this deep, you'll probably want an additional network switch to provide enough network ports for all the gadgets you probably have. --- End quote --- Thanks, it's nice but it ain't cheap. |
| soldar:
As I said, I bought a router and will be installing OpenWRT when I get it. Mostly for entertainment. Still, I have X86_64 computers available and it would be nice to be able to run OpenWRT but the installation process I see is very complicated. Isn't there a simple way of installing and running Open WRT in a computer with no OS or with Linux? |
| coppice:
--- Quote from: wraper on December 20, 2024, 05:35:04 pm ---AFAIK A7 is Amazon exclusive C7 variant. And C7 had hell a lot of HW revisions, not all of which were OpenWRT friendly. --- End quote --- TP-Link has numerous versions of almost anything they've been making for a while. Their volumes are so big I guess they easily justify the NRE to achieve even a small reduction in RE. Its kinda funky going to their web site to see if there are firmware updates available, and finding up to 10 hardware versions, each with their own firmware version. |
| wraper:
--- Quote from: coppice on December 22, 2024, 03:56:01 pm --- --- Quote from: wraper on December 20, 2024, 05:35:04 pm ---AFAIK A7 is Amazon exclusive C7 variant. And C7 had hell a lot of HW revisions, not all of which were OpenWRT friendly. --- End quote --- TP-Link has numerous versions of almost anything they've been making for a while. Their volumes are so big I guess they easily justify the NRE to achieve even a small reduction in RE. Its kinda funky going to their web site to see if there are firmware updates available, and finding up to 10 hardware versions, each with their own firmware version. --- End quote --- Later HW C5/C7 web interface does not even look anything like earlier ones, and have 1 USB port instead of 2. BTW I bought C5 in 2015 and flashed C7 firmware into it . Edited its model in firmware to flash C7 firmware through the web interface to keep original wifi config data, serial, MAC as they have exactly the same HW but C5 is artificially limited. |
| David Hess:
--- Quote from: soldar on December 22, 2024, 03:23:49 pm --- --- Quote from: AG6QR on December 21, 2024, 05:55:44 pm --- For my router/firewall, I'm using a Protectli Vault FW4b, a nice small low-power fanless x86 computer with four ethernet ports. It's available with various combinations of RAM and SSD. Mine has 8G RAM and 120G SSD, but in hindsight, 4G RAM and 32G SSD would have been more than enough. I've installed OPNSense software on it, which gives excellent control and visibility to set it up for multiple VLANs, with firewall rules to do whatever I want. I'm using a Unifi U6 for my home's WiFi -- it's centrally mounted in the ceiling of a hallway. If you're in this deep, you'll probably want an additional network switch to provide enough network ports for all the gadgets you probably have. --- End quote --- Thanks, it's nice but it ain't cheap. --- End quote --- PC Engines was only a little less expensive so it seems reasonable. There are cheaper Chinese solutions if that is what you are looking for. I am still looking for a replacement for the APU2 from PC Engines. There are none so my next router will likely be a desktop board configured for lowest possible power. |
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