I used it before, but ultimately it comes down to compatibility. Broadcomm is dominating the router space and 3rd party firmwares are a nono for that. So I just got an Asus that is supposed to be supported for a very long time.
this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
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I bought a router with OpenWRT support but the official firmware works well enough and I can't really be bothered to switch it out for OpenWRT right now lol
it's good to know that I can in the future though, that wasn't an option with my last router
Fine on limited hardware like a router but if you're going to use a full box for your router (or a VM), you'd probably want OPNsense for the ease of management and the fact that it's targetted for hardware like that.
I remember getting a LinkSyS WRT54G for free and then installing OpenRT and then jumping to Tomato and dd-wrt on and off and finally setting on dd-wrt
No, for home I've only ever used pfsense or opnsense.
I've long known about it. I don't seriously use it, but I would if only my Wi-Fi router was fully supported. It's an Asus one (that I got for free from T-Mobile a decade ago) so I installed Asuswrt-Merlin on it instead.
Following the recommendation of homelab communities, I got into OpnSense (a BSD-based firewall system for x86 hardware only) last year, still keeping my Wi-Fi router as a dedicated AP. In hindsight I somewhat regret that choice and probably would've been better off buying a new OpenWRT-compatible router and using it to handle firewall/routing/AP all in one device instead of wasting the power draw of another separate N100 system. I like having wireguard and vnstat in my router now, which Merlin didn't offer, but I know OpenWRT has those too and I don't have any other needs that warrant a higher-power router.
Yeah of course! Once I went on a buying spree of used WNDR3700. They were so cheap and I won a few too many bids at once.
I gave one to a flatmate when we lived together as students and he took it with when he moved out. Put one in the office room of my current flatmate and still have one or two in reserve. I usually take one with me to LAN-parties.
Before that I once used DD-WRT on a WRT54GL. It also wasn't bad from what I remember.
Past Linux user here, not only do I use openwrt, but I base my routers choice on openwrt support, it's weird to me there are long term Linux users who don't know what openwrt is
What do you use nowadays?
You mean as an OS? Windows, but I feel fluent in Linux, used it for a few years, subbed here as a sentiment😄 I work in IT, mainly Windows administration but some Linux too
Was not expecting that! What a dark character arc :D
Yes, I run my network infrastructure on it (three access points (one of them the network gateway) and an Ethernet-to-wifi bridge).
Yeah I run it on a cheap asus router. Learned stuff like don't run adguard on it if you don't have that much ram
Run it on a cheap fanless x86 box instead.
I mean, what does one have to do to replace an ISP owned router and what are the benefits? How much does one have to know in order to setup a connection? How does one get connection details from the ISP owned router? How much does a replacement router cost?
My ISP owned router allows me to configure NAT forwarding, replace the DNS, setup a DMZ, assign static IPs to MACs, turn off the internet at specific times (e.g at night), configure parental controls (allows websites, internet access) per device, and probably a few other things I haven't discovered yet.
I've always set the CPE modem to full bridge and put a router inside that I can control fully. Then you can swap equipment at will if you need to.
Most the things you mentioned are barely doable on some of the modern all in one modems where I live.
On mine I've got separate wi-fi networks for inside and guest, I run zenarmor for ads and malicious junk, I run a proxy, I do my DNS on it for all my internal docker instances, and more. I realize I am doing more than your average person, though.
For my ISP it's actually cheaper to not use their modem+WiFi router as they charge a monthly lease on the equipment. I declined it and they provided me with a modem for free. All I have to do is plug the modem to my own router and that's it!
The features you listed seems pretty standard to all routers these days.
The features you listed seems pretty standard to all routers these days.
You and @[email protected] have very different experiences 😄
Haha, true. I was referring to routers specifically, not the all in one's.
You can run a VPN like wire guard, ad blockers such as Adguard Home or pihole or even media servers on your openwrt router.
I see. Well, I have a homeserver for that, which runs all my services, so an openwrt router wouldn't be an upgrade.
But probably without a homeserver, an openwrt router would make sense and use less energy.
If you mean a DSL modem or cable DOCSIS, I don't think those are easily replaceable. But you can definitely put an OpenWRT device right behind it and use that. It's pretty straightforward (plug in the upstream side, wait for it to get an address, done).
As for how much you need to know... okay. That's a tricky question because, the most you mess with OpenWRT, the more some stuff becomes automatic, and that makes it easy to forget things. That's not on you, that's on me.
That said, thinking about it a little, the defaults are pretty workable right after installation. You'll have to set an admin password on the OpenWRT box (it nags you until you do these days), which should be familiar. Turning up wifi is a little tricky at first. I would recommend reading through the quickstart guide once or twice before digging into OpenWRT configuration because it lays out all of the basics that you need to get going. It's about as well written and useful as the manuals for access points were way back when.
One thing I would recommend is, if you build an OpenWRT box, setting it up before you plug it in and use it as your network gateway. It's much easier to poke at it without having "When is my network going to come back up?" rattling around in the back of your mind.
As a person with hands, do you know about flamenco?
I used it in the past, and it is great.
Nowadays, I bought a mid price router from a well known brand, and seriously: The router works, has all features I need (even WireGuard OOTB) and for now I see no reason to replace the provided firmware with OpenWRT. YOLO!
I am aware of openwrt and used to use when I used router hardware. I have moved to pfsense. I install it on either a 1 liter mini PC or some other older enterprise piece of hardware.
TIL there are Linux people that don't use OpenWRT. I always assumed everyone in the Linux community used it. It's great.
Works great with mt7621 based routers if anyone ends up looking for something compatible.
I run a proxmox and run PFsense on it. They are both pretty similar but there were more tutorials for PFsense at the time.
Some people use pfSense/OPNsense
or libreCMC
It's a joy to use on x86 hardware though. You can run as many services as you want.
IMO, I'd run pf/opnsense on an x86 box, but openwrt on a low powered device...
Did that years ago with a pfSense firewall connected to the DSL modem, with OpenWrt APs around the house...until the hardware couldn't support the next version of OpenWrt... (not enough RAM?)
Installed OpenWRT on my NetGear router like 2 years back, and it didn't give me any trouble since then. BTW, the amount of configuration options it offer is mindbogglingly.
Just the capacity for network monitoring for troubleshooting makes it worthwhile. Not being able to SSH into Netgear's firmware, let alone having access to tcpdump is an advantage right there.
Years ago I derived a flash with vtun on it. It's so old, now, but vtun still goes and connects. And since it's not systemd, it'll keep hammering at the connection until it succeeds.
So these old routers are still out there, and when a soho site is sick and we can't get in we instruct someone to plug in the blue box and it calls out for help.
It's so ghetto but, in places like the southern states where rural power outages can outlast generator time, it has cut down our time to recovery tremendously.
I was actually the lead engineer on an Openwrt router. I hadn't heard of it before that, but at one point I pretty much knew it inside and out. It's been a few years since I left that company, so I'm a bit rusty at this point.
We made tons of custom features for our router. I did the backend and implemented UIs for most of them. The biggest feature I did though was a full REST API to be able to configure the router from a smart home controller, which was the company's main product. I did both the router side (server) and the smart home controller side (client/caller), including the UI on the smart home controller. I spent almost a year on just that feature. But I was damn proud of it by the end.
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