home made router

i never knew there was such a thing, but I saw yesterday that there is a OS called Opnsense and others that can be installed onto a small PC or even a larger one if you want to and will act as a router.
this is the router only, so still need another box like a modem or even another router acting as a modem only.

I wonder if this will be more reliable than a normal router. Need a mini Pc or something like that.

There are a number of people on the forums who post about their OpnSense configurations. For example this one yesterday. Do a search for OpnSense on TBB forums and you will get an idea of other people talking about it. PfSense also seems popular.

Edited by ian72 (Tue 23-Aug-22 14:09:23)

I doubt it will be "more reliable" but it will typically have more features. I would go with OPNsense over pfSense although I'm currently running OpenWrt which boots very quickly off a USB stick and has lots of packages/features you can install(I'm running it on a Dell/Wyse £30 thin client I bought off eBay).

How could it possibly me more reliable than a dedicated router when there it's much to go wrong, even a mini PC?
Back in early days of ADSL when a USB modem was the only way to connect and a simple ADSL router cost over £200, some used a PC as a router to connect to their 10Mbps home network, or if they were really cutting edge a 100Mbps LAN.

Edited by witchunt (Tue 23-Aug-22 14:53:14)

I've been using pfSense for over 6 years, and never had an issue, more than can be said for random crashes on consumer routers that you could fry an egg on I've had before. You can get more dedicated hardware to run pfSense on, rather than old style PC, I'm using a Kettop i7 fanless box and that consumes around 5 watts of power and never waivers.

A dedicator router is what you choose it to be. Whilst it is a PC for pfSense/Opnsense, it isn't running anything complicated like Windows. Routers themselves are basically just computers running Linux, and support often disappears once the next model is released. I've had pfSense running with an up-time of well over 100 days, only needing a reboot because of an update resetting the counter.

If you want to learn about networking, want the features and customisation of something more professional, you can't beat it. It isn't for everyone, but many of us are using them, and using more advanced features, without any issues whatsoever.

In reply to a post by Spud2003:

I doubt it will be "more reliable" but it will typically have more features. I would go with OPNsense over pfSense although I'm currently running OpenWrt which boots very quickly off a USB stick and has lots of packages/features you can install(I'm running it on a Dell/Wyse £30 thin client I bought off eBay).

Depends on the router, there's several out there which are just terrible, often with buggy/insecure/incomplete firmware or far too little CPU/Memory for what they're being asked to do.

In reply to a post by dragon2611:

Depends on the router, there's several out there which are just terrible, often with buggy/insecure/incomplete firmware or far too little CPU/Memory for what they're being asked to do.

And there are those that have 8 x WiFi antenna, with 3 WiFi 6 radios, and dedicated Broadcom CPU with hardware acceleration for PPPoE and can run rings around the wrong spec OpnSense box as bandwidths increase.

Its a case of using the right tool for the job!

LOL, wow, I have certainly open something on here.

It was just an idea, fed up with the naff routers I have here, well one is not naff it is pretty good to be honest but the Wi-fi is out of date.

Not sure if I would want to pay the price of the Kettop, was looking more into the Celeron or I3. I did not want to go for intel, but I have read that the Opnsense and other work better with Intel Ethernet.

I never realised it have been going for 6 years, if I did, I would have gone for one long ago.

only a thought.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

I wonder if this will be more reliable than a normal router.

Nope.

pfSense has been around longer than 6 years, I've just been using it for 6 or 7 years now.

I can't remember one time I've had any issues or crashes, it just always works. On second box now to run it, had a slower box before which was fine for 5 years until I upgraded to FTTP, where it couldn't quite keep up. Still have that box ready to go as a backup just in case.

Overall I've spent less on kit than I would have done in previous years going from one router to another and have better kit with better Wi-Fi on a dedicated access point and 16 port switch.

pfSense has also been invaluable for troubleshooting with logs and packet capture options.