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LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

blog.apnic.net

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Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#61

I bought a libreCMC router [1] from Think Pinguin [2] years ago. The firmware is well maintained [3]. The IRC support has been excellent when needed. It is by no means a high end router, but I did not purchase it with that expectation to begin with. Overall, I have been super happy with it. [1]: https://librecmc.org/ [2]: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/librecmc-free-softwar... [3]: https://gogs.librecmc.org/l…

I bought a libreCMC router [1] from Think Pinguin [2] years ago

This looks very cool, but do they sell a router with everything installed and ready to go? I don't see a "buy it now" button on their page.

I suspect there are a lot of people like me who are happy to buy this stuff but would like to have it ready to go, out of the box.

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#62
post #2

Cool work being done here. I particularly like that it uses mini-PCIe cards as the 5Ghz antennas! [0] [0] https://librerouter.org/document/schematic-v1/

It looks like the librerouter.org ssl certificate expired 15 minutes ago.

Correct. [1] Hopefully someone will email them.

[1] - https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=librerouter.o...

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#63
post #38
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a diverse set of DNS software is a great thing, I'm not sure why you think that's strange. Why have every single router vulnerable to the next BIND bug?

BIND? Who still uses that? Its dnsmasq and unbound all over.

Bind is still very heavily used. Dnsmasq is popular in many of the container deployment models. I love Unbound, and hope that it gains more popularity. ISC (Bind) refuses to implement the min-ttl feature of Unbound. Unbound has better query (request and response) logging than Bind.

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#64
post #3

Slightly different purpose, but it's a reminder that Omnia Turris exists: https://omnia.turris.cz/en/ 100% Open hardware, comes with OpenWRT and it is easy to modify https://forum.turris.cz/t/high-performance-configuration-upd... https://forum.turris.cz/t/omnia-on-steroids-project-your-opi...

Is it really 100% open hardware? Did they release the design files yet? They did release them for older Turris products and placed them under Cern OHL [1], but last time I checked they did not do so for the Turris Omnia [2]. I was a bit disappointed about that, since they promised it to be open hardware during the crowdfunding.

[1] https://project.turris.cz/en/hardware-documentation

[2] https://forum.turris.cz/t/turris-omnia-hardware-documentatio...

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#65

These are cool and all, but here's a naive question. Where do these community networks connect to the internet at large? Wouldn't this violate some sort of ToS from the provider?

hi NicoEchániz here, project coordinator for the LibreRouter. There are many different realities regarding the connectivity from a community network to the rest of the Internet. In the case of AlterMundi - the organization steering LibreRouter - , the communities that are connected in our region in Argentina are registered as a national non-profit operator, we have our own ASN and public IP ranges and we do BGP peeri…

I am very interesting being the mesh handle then special access nodes that the BGP session has with other providers? do you use eBGP? iBGP?

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#66
post #29
post #3

Slightly different purpose, but it's a reminder that Omnia Turris exists: https://omnia.turris.cz/en/ 100% Open hardware, comes with OpenWRT and it is easy to modify https://forum.turris.cz/t/high-performance-configuration-upd... https://forum.turris.cz/t/omnia-on-steroids-project-your-opi...

The Turris is a luxury toy for rich techies to play around with. Librerouter is outdoor infrastructure for remote developing areas. Their purposes could not be more different and the only thing they have in common is that the both contain radios and run OpenWRT.

Does LibreRouter have pricing yet? I've never seen an open hardware product with competitive pricing (except maybe Arduino).

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#67
post #2

Cool work being done here. I particularly like that it uses mini-PCIe cards as the 5Ghz antennas! [0] [0] https://librerouter.org/document/schematic-v1/

It looks like the librerouter.org ssl certificate expired 15 minutes ago.

They goofed their letsencrypt renew cron job.

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#68

I bought a libreCMC router [1] from Think Pinguin [2] years ago. The firmware is well maintained [3]. The IRC support has been excellent when needed. It is by no means a high end router, but I did not purchase it with that expectation to begin with. Overall, I have been super happy with it. [1]: https://librecmc.org/ [2]: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/librecmc-free-softwar... [3]: https://gogs.librecmc.org/l…

I bought a libreCMC router [1] from Think Pinguin [2] years ago This looks very cool, but do they sell a router with everything installed and ready to go? I don't see a "buy it now" button on their page. I suspect there are a lot of people like me who are happy to buy this stuff but would like to have it ready to go, out of the box.

https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/free-software-wireles...

Seems the search string you were looking for is "buy think penguin router"...

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#69
post #38
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a diverse set of DNS software is a great thing, I'm not sure why you think that's strange. Why have every single router vulnerable to the next BIND bug?

BIND? Who still uses that? Its dnsmasq and unbound all over.

> Who still uses that?

The top 100 largest ISPs in the world, as measured by CAIDA ASRANK.

Re: LibreRouter: Powering community networks with free and open hardware

#70

I bought a libreCMC router [1] from Think Pinguin [2] years ago. The firmware is well maintained [3]. The IRC support has been excellent when needed. It is by no means a high end router, but I did not purchase it with that expectation to begin with. Overall, I have been super happy with it. [1]: https://librecmc.org/ [2]: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/librecmc-free-softwar... [3]: https://gogs.librecmc.org/l…

I bought a libreCMC router [1] from Think Pinguin [2] years ago This looks very cool, but do they sell a router with everything installed and ready to go? I don't see a "buy it now" button on their page. I suspect there are a lot of people like me who are happy to buy this stuff but would like to have it ready to go, out of the box.

Hi jseliger,

The libreCMC router from Think Penguin did come ready to go out of the box. Of course I made a few tweaks. At the very least you will want to set a good passphrase.

Unfortunately I don't think the model that I purchased is still being sold. Think Penguin is now selling a newer model (Wireless-N Mini VPN Router (TPE-R1100)) with preconfigured vpn tunneling that is FSF certified [1]. Though I have not used that particular model, it is running the same libreCMC firmware :-). You can read more about their VPN service here [2], but I can't comment on it since I have never used it.

[1]:https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/free-software-wireles...

[2]: https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguinvpn-subscripti...

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