step 1 buy openwrt hardware accelerated NAT compatible device
step 2 throw the mikrotik in the garbage
HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router
101–110 of 151 posts
Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
> i've since been switching to zyxel gs1900-* switches (up to 48 ports with openwrt) I’m sorry what? You can run openwrt on that line of switches? I just have a 24-port one at home running stock firmware…
they have all kinds of stuff that runs openwrt like: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0978TF8K3/ https://openwrt.org/toh/zyxel/gs1900-24hp_a1 or: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08TC3VJ61 https://openwrt.org/toh/hwdata/zyxel/zyxel_xgs1250-12_b1
lovely, thank you!
Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router
#103I've been a MikroTik fan since the beginning of my career some 15 years ago now. I have used the MikroTik router and Ubiquiti AP combination ever since. With that said, I can absolutely agree that their UX is terrible for anyone who doesn't specifically know how to configure a MikroTik router. The fact that you have to configure FQ-CoDel yourself and some bufferbloat protection isn't just a built-in option is absurd…
They have an increasingly capable "simple" UI for casual users. It seems like improving it is on their roadmap, as they've been delivering vast improvements in functionality with each major release. Also, shipping winbox on all platforms has been a huge QoL improvement
I configure it by copy pasting the pages to chatgpt and asking questions. Dumb? Maybe but seems to work.
Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router
#104Switched to Ubiquiti, I'm quite happy except for their lack of a sane MCP.
How is the ipv6 situation these days? I left Ubiquiti 2 years ago because I needed to be able to configure the /56 I got from my isp. The unifi controller was pathetic in what it could do.
Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router
#105Mikrotik is not a mere replacement for plug and play routers such as TP-Link and the like. It's a very advanced device offering countless networking features, including multiple VPN server options, advanced Layer 2/bridging/switching features - VLANs, nested VLANs (Q-in-Q), VXLAN, spanning tree protocols (STP, RSTP, MSTP), 802.1x authentication, bridge-based firewall and bridge-based NAT, data center bridging (a.k.a.…
One of their newer APs has thread radio. That is the best idea anyone has had since the mid 90s.
Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router
#106I gave it a shot but I really didn't see any benefit over OpenWRT which is plain old Linux.
There's also some really good value hardware that you can install OpenWRT on, I picked up a Xiaomi AP for like $30, flashed OpenWRT and it works great.
Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router
#107Just use linux! Why use someone else's non FOSS, locked down linux, when you could truly own your router? It's a great educational experience I would recommend to anyone interested in networking. Grab debian, grab a system with 2 NICs, make it your router/firewall/gateway.
> Grab debian, grab a system with 2 NICs, make it your router/firewall/gateway. The problem with this (assuming you meant a generic (x86?) system) is that you won't get wire speed processing (no hardware offloading), so network performance will suffer. Unless you buy a dedicated router board (which is typically ARM), like say something like the Banana Pi BPI-R4. But installing/configuring a standard distro line Debia…
Any remotely recent generic office PC should be able to handle line rate 10 Gbit routing as long as it has the PCIe lanes for it.
I route my home 10G internet on a ThinkCentre Tiny with a 2018 Core i3-8100T.
Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
from my brief search: real-world OPNsense (yea, that's not Debian) benchmarks show that even low-power Xeon-D (Skylake-D SoC) with 10G SFP+ NICs: pushed 9.40 Gbps in plain router mode 7 Gbps with packet filtering and no rules 7 Gbps in NAT mode 5.5 Gbps with a default ruleset
Using a Xeon for a router just because you want to use linux is a wild choice.
I’ve been running a Supermicro X10SLH-LN6TF as my router, and it’s very well suited for the job. Power use is very high for a home router, but reasonable for a 1U router - especially considering the era it’s from and its capabilities (routing 5-8Gbps per stream depending on firewall config, able to handle a couple active streams, and line rate routing with no firewall).
I wouldn’t suggest anyone buy something like this today for home use, but 6 years ago when I purchased it there were not many 10GbE routers to be had period, let alone for the price ($300 roughly if I remember correctly ). Even considering the cost of power over the last 6 years, I still come out much cheaper than if I’d bought something more power efficient new at the time.
Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router
#109mikrotik is great for the tech enthusiast who wants to test things out or use enterprise grade hardware but without the enterprise grade cost (no license fees) but this also means you're missing the enterprise grade support. The equipment is a fantastic deal for what you get but you need to know what you're doing to get the best performance out of it.
Re: HomeLab #1: MikroTik as a Home Router
#110Mikrotik is not a mere replacement for plug and play routers such as TP-Link and the like. It's a very advanced device offering countless networking features, including multiple VPN server options, advanced Layer 2/bridging/switching features - VLANs, nested VLANs (Q-in-Q), VXLAN, spanning tree protocols (STP, RSTP, MSTP), 802.1x authentication, bridge-based firewall and bridge-based NAT, data center bridging (a.k.a.…
One of their newer APs has thread radio. That is the best idea anyone has had since the mid 90s.
How is the performance of their newer APs?
That was always what was holding me back from switching off a 2.5GbE / WiFi 7 UniFi stack.