I am planning to eventually build my own home server, and when I do I will hook it up via ethernet. But I do want to switch away from the generic FIOS router and use my own for more control over my data and security. Any recommendations?
I don’t know if it’s the best one, but I’ve been using Mikrotik Hex S for years and it’s been a great experience so far.
If you want the full control use https://opnsense.org/ on a mini pc or in a VM on your home server.
Please don’t host a router on a Hypervisor VM. That does not benefit security. First of all a router is an integral part of the (home) network, therefore it should not be dependent on anything, like a hypervisor. You want to be able to replace or update your server/ hypervisor independently from each other, for example in 5 hrs your router might be still rocking all data, but you would want to upgrade your home server / hypervisor. Furthermore all those OpenWRT, PFsense, OpenSense kernel/ OS hardening is more effective on the hardware itself, especially all RAM/ Memory based security measures. Also if you truly want to be more secure, you use dedicated hardware for multiple reasons, performance is dedicated to only routing/ firewall processing (no other service/ VM can block or slow down packet processing), reducing the attack surface (less software, less attack surface), easier to update.
Can this work with the “off the shelf” mesh routers.
This seems like it’s geared toward higher power hardware that’s not generally available on a consumer-grade router.
You could buy a $300 consumer router and it would be worse than just using an old PC with OPNsense.
Except that the old PC is probably less efficient at a lower clock than an AR based consumer router. You’ll get more performance and features, but it will be more expensive to run.
The Fujitsu Futro S720 consumes about 6 Watts and it’s great for OPNsense!
I guess if you live in a place where electricity is super expensive this will matter. A good majority of self-hosted people don’t seem to care much as they have server racks full of old hardware.
No, off the shelf routers are usually ARM and opnsense is x86 only.
…or MIPS…
Pfsense or opnsense are really powerful options.
You’ll need a wireless access point as well, but those two are quite powerful and can run on quite powerful hardware.
I like the fritzbox ones but I think in USA the best is the base Unifi one (dream router)
Or a cheap decommissioned thinkcentre tiny m700 with opnsense
if you run a router on a computer like you suggest, can you also do other stuff with the computer like file serving? or is it a single function device for reasons of security or system resources?
theoretically you can install it as a VM on a computer that does many other stuff, but the more stuff it does, the more chances you need to take it down to reconfigure, reinstall, install updates and so on. When that computer is down, you’re offline
Can you give us some details about your house?
My house was built in the golden age of having voip landlines that needed CAT 5e cable but before cell phones were the norm so I have a wired backhaul mesh.
Edit: it occurs to me you probably mean like a router-router being that this is self hosted lol. So disregard haha
I live in a town house with relatively good Wifi signal coverage with no extenders needed. I am planning on eventually paying a professional to get wall Ethernet ports installed so I can hook up my most network dependent devices (gaming desktop, gaming devices) and use the router with the rest that wouldn’t make sense to hook into Ethernet.
You already have some good suggestions, so i just want to mention openWRT which can be flashed on off-the-shelf router combo (just check their supported devices first, if you go this route)
Love OpenWRT!
As a networking noob I spent more than a week configuring it to get it right, including needing to SSH into it because I flashed the wrong firmware (do not get NA and EU confused, the difference is enough to flat line your modem).
But in the end, I eliminated my bufferbloat with SQM; a feature the stock device lacked. I also set up a USB to act as expanded storage to install more software.
My TP-Link ER8411 can’t be flashed with OpenWRT even though their software is based on a very old version of it. :(
I have 10Gbps internet and can’t find any 10Gbps routers that support custom firmware. Building a pfSense system that supports 10Gbps would be much more expensive and use more power than a router that has a purpose-built SoC.
Have you thought about getting something like this?
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/a3EMMYTdOYo
https://piped.video/a3EMMYTdOYo
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
I don’t have space for full-depth rackmount hardware - I just have a small shallow networking rack.
From the video, it sounds like this device can’t actually achieve 10Gbps in real life. At 46:44 in the video, he says that he got 6.5Gbps with the firewall enabled and one firewall rule, and at 47:15 he said that NAT download speed (i.e. what you’d experience with an actual internet connection) was only 4.2Gbps.
I get full speed through my ER8411, and it was cheaper than this device too ($350). I’m annoyed by a lack of IPv6 features, but it does achieve full 10Gbps speeds at least.
Ah, that’s kinda terrible, too bad
It also works on x86 and has better bufferbloat mitigation than the BSD based router systems (*sense), which means lower latency/pings under heavy WAN (internet) load.
I just got a MikroTik RB5009UPr+S+in and I’m loving it so far. I’m going to pair it with their AX ceiling wireless AP if I can ever catch it on sale again.
I think this is the best homelab router out there. If you are new to Mikrotik there is definitely a steep learning curve.
Openwrt is fairly good too, but I think documentation can be lacking and confusing for some edge applications. My other concerns with openwrt is performance since it is compatible with a wide variety of hardware is difficult to know how it will perform without testing it.
Yeah, it definitely took me a minute to get things set up properly, and I had to get a new VPN service, but it’s been great so far.
I want that router, but I don’t have a good reason to give my wife why our RB4011 needs to be upgraded…lol
UniFi Dream Router is also a nice router for internet speeds up to 700 Mbps.
Ubiquiti is hot garbage on a good day.
It all depends on the features you want in that router and how much you’re willing to spend. I bought a MikroTik hAP ax3, which has many enterprise features (that can come handy to us selfhosters as well) that I found myself not necessarily needing, but definitely enjoying.
I’ve had amazing luck with the Synology routers. You can start with one then if you want/need you add more to create a mesh network. I find the interface easy as well. My 2 cents of course…
Another vote for Synology here. I have 2 RT2600 and 1 RT1600 between myself and my parents houses. They have been completely bullet proof and the oldest one is going on 7 years old now.
The Firewalla is pricey but amazing. I am running the Gold at home, and it runs Linux and supports Dockers so I’m running PiHole on the router.
Everyone has some great recommendations. I didn’t see anything about Ubiquiti so I’ll throw it out there since I’ve had a good experience with them. The Dream Machine is for home/small office setups and is fairly inexpensive for what it does: https://store.ui.com/us/en/collections/unifi-dream-router.
Edit: it’s now the dream router. They changed the name it seems.
This is interesting, I hadn’t seen this from them before and I’m in the market for a new router! Does this play nicely with additional access points?
I have an older version but I think they all work pretty much the same. It should work fine for you depending on the brand/voltage of the APs you have currently.
I have a couple Asus CT8’s that are dying on me, so I’d like to see if I can turn them in to AP’s. While I’d eventually like to get on to an OpnSense box I need a near term solution (as that will be a steep learning curve for me).
Is there a resource available that documents compatability?
I’d say they should work fine if you can disable the routing and have them act just like WiFi access points. Then connect the LAN ports to the Ubiquiti and you should be good. That said, I’m not familiar with those devices so take this as you will.
The only compatibility issues I was thinking about was PoE-related mainly but those look like they need their own power supplies. Ubiquiti used to push a nonstandard PoE spec with some of their APs but I don’t think that’s the case anymore.
They work with existing Ubiquiti AP’s no problem. I have the Dream Machine (I guess Dream router now) and it’s awesome. Wish I got the Dream Machine Pro which is switch-like and comes with no AP’s so you have to add them as needed and it supports cameras.
They don’t supply PoE, mind.
I’m planning an ubiquiti deployment:
- 5-6x AP 6 Pro (haven’t done survey yet)
- 1x TL-SG1016PE PoE switch (yuck, but cheap)
- 1x R86S running opnsense and docker VMs, with unifi controller and pihole in docker
The R86S is the same price as the dream machine, but good luck running pihole on the DM.
I considered Mikrotik, but my mum would have to call me every time there was an issue, and it would only be marginally cheaper. I expect any competent local tech to be able to support unifi and opnsense.
I’ve considered upgrading to a dream machine. I’m still rocking an old USG
I just retired an Edgerouter lite for a UDM Pro. Finally happy with it after moving on to the 3.x firmware.
Glad to hear it. I went from edge router to usg and haven’t seen anything since to move to. After all the problems I was hearing about UDM I didn’t end up trying it
I wish they had more 2.5G or even SPF+ options in this range. I’m lucky enough to have a >1gigabit home connection but router options are surprisingly limited if I want that full connection speed going to my server
They do have the XG series. I actually have a SW-16-XG for the backplane on my server for my SAN. Local access 10G using SFP+ ports are definitely doable if you don’t need to cross any VLANs or do any routing.
I haven’t used one personally but the cheapest they have is the Flex-XG switch it seems, which seems pretty cheap for 10G.
Yeah if it was just a switch I’d be fine, but for gateway/firewall options it’s a bit of a bugger unless I want a 1U device
Ohh, sorry I misread your comment. Yeah, 2.5G WAN is a little trickier unless you go with something enterprise grade it seems.
My only complaint is that coming from a networking background, Ubiquity’s OS is awful and makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out. Navigating the interface to find settings makes no sense, it’s not very granular in how you can configure certain filtering settings, dual wan setups are difficult to manually change over, and good luck looking at logs to troubleshoot any traffic flow issues (hint: you can’t).
For someone who just needs a firewall and a VPN endpoint, it’s great. If you need anything more than that, get opnsense/pfsense. Pairing one of those with Ubiquity APs (which are actually pretty terrific) is a really solid setup.
Not sure about your budget, but I switched to a udm se and it’s pretty awesome, for me the benefit comes in with cameras and access control. the UI and off the shelf tooling is very nice with it.
Opensense is another more diy option.
I used an edge router 4 before the udm for a few years and it was pretty ok.
I bought a mini pc with four Ethernet ports and turned that into a router
Got a suggested device?
Fujitsu Futro S720 with a 90° 4x PCI adapter and an Intel NIC. It consumes about 6W (maybe something more with the additional NIC). You can get the former for about 20/30€ on eBay and the rest for about 30/40€. If you have a VLAN enabled switch, you can even just use the onboard Ethernet port.
Thank you! Seems like its unavailable in Europe unless you pay a hefty premium.
There are many similar. The best is GoWin R86S
I’m using a ~30 USD thin client with a 4 port networking card (~20 USD), just using plain
nftableson Debian. It routes handles my network just fine (complex rule set with many subnets & rules, 250/100 Mbps connection). Also using codel/cake for traffic shaping, avoiding lousy ping times even when downloading/streaming et c.I use two TP-Link EAP 245v3 (ancient by now, but I can still use all my WAN speed from all rooms) for WiFi. Works great.
If I would redo it I’d use VyOS, OpenWRT or maybe OPNSense, but still using x86 hardware due to cost/power usage/performance. And then newer ceiling access points.
