Best router for home use?
Best router for home use?
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?
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If you want the full control use https://opnsense.org/ on a mini pc or in a VM on your home server.
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.
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.
The Fujitsu Futro S720 consumes about 6 Watts and it's great for OPNsense!
No, off the shelf routers are usually ARM and opnsense is x86 only.
...or MIPS...
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.