Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Rich Freeman <rich0@g.o>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] To all IPv6-slackers among the Gentoo community
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 2019 19:31:14
Message-Id: CAGfcS_k8mYOEYwfL75gO4NLF221hKe4haGowWqXvnqNG5N0KKQ@mail.gmail.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-user] To all IPv6-slackers among the Gentoo community by Dale
1 On Wed, Nov 27, 2019 at 12:36 PM Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com> wrote:
2 >
3 > I've found that asking here is best. If it wasn't for my post here, I
4 > would have stuck with Linksys because it is what I've used in the past.
5 > Thing is, a post here lead me to a better product, even tho it wasn't a
6 > Linksys product. It's one reason I post questions here quite often. I
7 > get more info from here than I could likely ever find elsewhere because
8 > most people here post about their own experience not some theory. You
9 > should know, you post about yours quite often and it's generally a good
10 > idea to give it some weight when deciding something.
11 >
12
13 Linksys had that one router eons ago that was capable of running linux
14 (might have run it out of the box - I forget). Back in the day there
15 weren't many options and they were one of the better ones.
16
17 They only got worse, and a lot of much better options have come out
18 since then. LOTS of better options. There are ARM-based PCs designed
19 to run pfsense and so on with multiple NICs. Buffalo makes routers
20 with DD-WRT pre-installed, and while I'd double check in the past they
21 could all be trivially flashed to OpenWRT.
22
23 I'd also seriously consider Ubiquiti. An ER-X can be found in the $60
24 range and supports routing at gigabit speeds. It runs linux already
25 out of the box with ssh/etc and a CLI, or a nice web GUI. It looks
26 like it isn't hard to flash OpenWRT on it as well though there seem to
27 be some caveats (disclaimer: I've never tried it).
28
29 There are a couple of good options.
30
31 I'd seriously consider using something that does what you want out of
32 the box before going the OpenWRT route. I don't think EdgeOS is
33 actually FOSS, but it is largely built on FOSS, so if it does what you
34 want out of the box and is easy to maintain that is a win, and if at
35 any point it doesn't get support you can then go the OpenWRT route.
36
37 That said, I've run a router on OpenWRT for ages as well. I think
38 that is a bit more work without much gain, but you can do it.
39
40 Oh, one thing I would avoid doing is running a bazillion services on
41 your router. Yes, if it is a linux/bsd box you can run whatever you
42 want on it. Yes, a lot of that stuff is already packaged and easy to
43 install. Just consider why you have a firewall in the first place (ie
44 another layer of isolation), and that this is likely a device with
45 minimum CPU/RAM/etc and whether you REALLY want to be hosting all this
46 stuff on a box that is a serious PITA to backup/image or rescue if it
47 doesn't boot up right. Generally I don't host anything on a router
48 that isn't directly related to its mission, so that could include
49 updating a dynamic DNS address, serving DHCP, or maybe serving DNS.
50 I've tried running OpenVPN and such on them and have found performance
51 generally suffers for it.
52
53 --
54 Rich

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-user] To all IPv6-slackers among the Gentoo community Neil Bothwick <neil@××××××××××.uk>
Re: [gentoo-user] To all IPv6-slackers among the Gentoo community Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com>