I'm currently running a Debian lite weight server on an old ml100 (onlogic) nuc. It's an old i3, with 16gb ram and no fan. But I have another. Anyone recommend a solid router setup on one of these ancient artifacts? Presently using openwrt on a proper router, though if the nuc is capable, I'd dedicate it thusly.
How to turn anything into a router
111–120 of 276 posts
Re: How to turn anything into a router
#112This is a great writeup! Perhaps I can put in a plug for the create_ap script which I have been maintaining for many years (http://github.com/dlenski/create_ap).
It's a shell script that allows you to turn any ol' Linux computer into a WiFi router in one quick command-line:
By default, it will setup your WiFi card as an access point (allows WPA2/3, MAC filtering, etc), setup packet forwarding and routing, and run a DHCP and DNS server. It will generally pick sensible defaults, but it's also highly customizable. If your WiFi card supports simultaneous AP and client mode, it will allow that.
Its requirements are extremely minimal: basically just Linux, a compatible wireless card, and a few common configuration packages (hostapd, iw, iproute2, iptables, dnsmasq). No NetworkManager needed.
I used it as my own home Internet gateway for many years, running on an ancient fanless Atom mini-PC.
Because it can quickly setup and teardown WiFi networks on-the-fly, it's also a valuable tool for setting up test networks when reverse-engineering IoT devices. I use it frequently for this purpose (see https://snowpatch.org/posts/i-can-completely-control-your-sm...).
Re: How to turn anything into a router
#113A router only really needs one network interface. Any computer with a single network interface, maybe even an (old) laptop, can be used. Anything x86 from at least the last 10 years is energy efficient and fast enough to route at gigabit speed. If you don't care about energy usage, any x86-based computer from the last 20 years is fast enough. The magic trick is to use VLANs, which require switches that support VLANs,…
Pretty sure switches that support VLANs are more expensive than a NIC. I think even a 4 port GigE Intel NIC can be had for less. But you might want VLANs anyway, so it's an interesting thing to consider.
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Re: How to turn anything into a router
#114Anyone has done mesh WiFi (ideally triband) using off the shelf parts and Linux? I have an Orbi AX system which works reliably, but now I want to upgrade the radio to WiFi 7 and that means I need to upgrade all the hardware. Hoping to move to using off the shelf parts so in the future I can just change the radio (ideally bunch of USB sticks). I understand this is not strictly just the router. I can (and used to have)…
That's a bigger can of worms than you might expect. Most consumer WiFi chips only barely support AP mode, and I'm not aware of any that can do multiple bands simultaneously. You'd probably need 4 adapters on the repeater for triband. One to connect upstream, one for each downstream band. Three instances of hostapd all configured with the same SSID and auth for each downstream interface.
Then there's the roaming issue. This is largely what the commercial "mesh" systems try to solve: deciding / helping inform when clients should switch APs. There are many solutions and none of them are without issues, including the commercial ones. Here's a starting point: https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wifi/roaming
Re: How to turn anything into a router
#115I'm curious about the policy rationale behind banning router imports. If a government were considering legislation like that, what would the primary concern usually be? Given that so much internet traffic is now protected by TLS/SSL and other encryption, why would it still matter if citizens were using routers that might be backdoored? Is the concern mainly things like botnets and DDoS activity, weak default credenti…
Among policy and security people, the term they bandy about is Advanced Persistent Threat (APT). They're not wrong; there are a number of recent cases, and these are ongoing, and you've heard of some of them: Volt, Flax and Salt Typhoon and Velvet Ant. There are more you haven't heard about, because only the operators know they exist.
These are networks of controlled devices. They're hard to eradicate, as shown by the fact that they haven't been eradicated: they're still active and being used to compromise systems, including defense and intelligence systems, power systems, financial systems, identity systems, etc.
Is banning foreign gear going to fix this? No. Security isn't a product. It is, however, a process, and in a process you take steps. I think this: we (individuals and institutions) enjoy tremendous liberty in the use of communications equipment in the US and most of the West. Taking that for granted is a mistake. If part of keeping this means the US has to spin up a domestic supply of network gear, or carefully modulate where such gear comes from, then lets do that. Otherwise, The Powers That Be will leverage its concerns into far worse steps.
Re: How to turn anything into a router
#116I’ve been using OpnSense/pfsense [0] for years and would highly recommend it. It has a great automatic update experience, config backups, builtin wireguard tunnels and advanced features like packet filtering options via suricata. When I am doing network management on my weekends, I’m so glad I’m not stuck in the Linux terminal learning about networking internals and can instead just go to a webui and configure my rou…
I agree on principal, but I often find that the GUI abstractions don't always map to the linux tooling/terminology/concepts, which often ends with a head bashing against the wall thinking "this is linux, I know it can do it, and I can do it by hand, but what is this GUI trying to conceptualize?!?!" I was recently introduced to a Barracuda router, and bashed my head against the wall long enough to discover it had an s…
I guess I'm different. I typically want my router/firewall/network services box to Just Work. I've made a career in deep-in-the-weeds system administration and engineering. Having to hunt down man pages, examples, tutorials, etc for the dozen or so fiddly bits make up a modern Linux- (or BSD-) based router was fun the first time, not so much the 10th. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.
I will concede that the OpnSense UI is far from perfect. I would really like to see a device-centric view that lets me set all the things related to that device from one screen (or possibly one screen with multiple tabs). For example, if I add a Roku device to my network, I want to enter in the MAC address and then be taken to a screen where it will let me set the hostname, pick a static IP address, hand it a specific DNS resolver IP, see all of the traffic going to/from the device, only allow it access to the Internet between during certain hours, etc. All of this currently requires jumping around between multiple disconnected parts of the OpnSense UI.
Re: How to turn anything into a router
#117Something I did not see in the article are router specific tuning such as
net.ipv4.ip_early_demux = 0
net.ipv4.tcp_early_demux = 0
net.ipv4.udp_early_demux = 0
Such things do not preclude additional tuning on the client and server sides as well but those are even bigger topics.
Re: How to turn anything into a router
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recommend Pfsense or OpnSense if your hardware works with a FreeBSD-based thing. They're super easy to set up and don't have many surprises. After I upgraded to a 10GbE ethernet card in my previous router, my card didn't work correctly with FreeBSD-based stuff anymore. I changed to ClearOS and that was actually comparably easy to Pfsense...maybe even easier? I recommend checking that one out.
While I am a linux advocate for networking in the current day outside of hyper specific CDN use cases (a la netflix)... its pretty common for people to just virtualize opnsense/pfsense to take advantage of linux network drivers. Especially if their actual routing requirements are modest and dont require full use of the hardware. Beyond getting support for devices completely absent on freebsd, quality of drivers, bugs…
I don't know enough about this level of IT to rebut this.
I use Linux for my router now because my server is NixOS, so I was able to consolidate my router into my server and turn off a machine (and thus save a little power), and I have so thoroughly drunk the Kool-aid for NixOS that I kind of want to put it everywhere. I run the latest kernel and I update daily, so I think most bugfixes (and hopefully security updates) will manifest quick enough.
Re: How to turn anything into a router
#119OpenWrt has a generic x86 PC build that can also be used to turn basically any random PC into a router, complete with an operating system actually designed and developed for that purpose.
Alpine Linux too.
Re: How to turn anything into a router
#120I'm curious about the policy rationale behind banning router imports. If a government were considering legislation like that, what would the primary concern usually be? Given that so much internet traffic is now protected by TLS/SSL and other encryption, why would it still matter if citizens were using routers that might be backdoored? Is the concern mainly things like botnets and DDoS activity, weak default credenti…
The policy rationale is the Trump admin takes bribes to permit router imports. No different than how various companies won tariff exemptions.
That, and like drones, maybe one of his kids starts up a router company which becomes the sole company allowed to sell routers in the US.