In reply to a post by andynormancx:

They'll both default to a safe setup, with NAT and no open ports.

I wasn't aware that was the case, thats good news. Thank you

Yes, default is typically 1 WAN (empty ruleset - default deny apart from stateful replies) and 1 LAN (outbound allowed)
If you add more LAN interfaces they don't have any allowed rules even outbound until you explicitly add it.

Oh and the IPv6 / dual stack support from the FreeBSD base and pfSense GUI has been more mature than many ISP issued routers until recent years because if the ISP wasn't even offering dual stack it sometimes did not bother including that in the customised GUI or pre-configured

Fritzbox on Zen was the first ISP router I had with a reasonably complete implementation including the option for additional private fdxx:: addressing and the ability to customise internal DNS, and that is still far from perfect.
But it is usable as a single box option until I have more room to have a cabinet.

If I ever move from VDSL to fibre I will likely move to dedicated router and separate Wi-Fi functions at that time,
either pfSense or EdgeRouter.

Edited by prlzx (Fri 26-Aug-22 20:46:05)

Thanks. My Qotom just has 4GB which was enough for the Pfsense that it came with. From your figures maybe I could use Proxmox to run both Opnsense and Pi-hole.

In reply to a post by dect:

For me its not the cost but how difficult it is to get it safely working without leaving a massive hole that anyone on the internet can easily walk through.

I thought that, but then I saw some videos and as other above have said, it is just the same as another other router at default.

Thanks to all the peeps that have replied, it is interesting, I am going to think about it for a while as long as this Hub one I have keeps going.
it was just an idea that interested me, but as others have said unless i want to learn about networking and that sort of thing, maybe best to keep with an out of the box router.

I will have a think.

>Dell Wyse 5020 Thin Client (Dx0Q) 32GB SATA Flash 4GB DDR3

Upgrading the flash storage is easy, just open up the case of a 2.5" SATA SSD, pull out the small circuit board and put it in the internal Dell flash slot.

Only slight downside is they have one ethernet port and some USB 3 ports, so you'll need a USB 3 1Gb network dongle. I used Openwrt which meant installing Openwrt and adding three kernel packages to drive my USB 3 chipset(taken from the same snapshot version - they must be installed in the correct order to work, in fact they won't install unless you install in the correct order). No problems with USB 3 dongle stability.