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How to turn anything into a router

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Re: How to turn anything into a router

#191

Post by akdev1l »

Fwirt wrote: post #125

You actually don't even need two interfaces on the box if you have a managed switch. It's not too difficult to configure your only interface as an 802.11q trunk port, and then you can use the managed switch as a sort of "interface expander". This is referred to as a "router on a stick" configuration, and it's how my home network is configured. Plus, if it's a PoE managed switch, you can install some cheap enterprise…

>Wi-Fi which is a lot higher quality than a consumer router

I am not really sure about it. My ISP provided AP can do a gigabit over wifi.

I need to change it because the ISP hardcodes the dns for spying reasons.

But sadly to match that performance I need to spend like $180 to get an AP with that performance

Re: How to turn anything into a router

#192

Post by jcalvinowens »

Bender wrote: post #186
jcalvinowens wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much does disabling early_demux actually matter? I do this too, but honestly I've never tested what difference it makes. I've always found fq_codel to be good enough for gaming through my router. But I have a 10gbps uplink.

How much does disabling early_demux actually matter? It depends on what kind of packet rate one is pushing through the device, what type of hardware is being used as the router and how sensitive ones applications are to such things but if you want a better scientific answer run as many load tests as you can that measure packet rates, lag and jitter then disable them and run your tests again. I should add this is just…

I was just curious if you'd benchmarked it. I've always guessed it makes no measurable difference for packet rates achievable on a residential internet connection, but never bothered to check.

Re: How to turn anything into a router

#193

Post by Bender »

jcalvinowens wrote: post #192
Bender wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much does disabling early_demux actually matter? It depends on what kind of packet rate one is pushing through the device, what type of hardware is being used as the router and how sensitive ones applications are to such things but if you want a better scientific answer run as many load tests as you can that measure packet rates, lag and jitter then disable them and run your tests again. I should add this is just…

I was just curious if you'd benchmarked it. I've always guessed it makes no measurable difference for packet rates achievable on a residential internet connection, but never bothered to check.

Per the documentation it compensates for some overhead. The numbers on my hardware based on my usage patterns will not match the numbers on your hardware and your usage patterns. I have tested it on several different routers and saw a difference but by itself nothing to write home about in my testing. Just as there is the concept of a death by a thousand cuts, there are also notable improvements by adjusting each layer of the stack to be optimized for the workload. In the big picture it is enough difference for me to bother with along with a few dozen other settings especially for gaming.

I predict some day this will be one of many things that will get adjusted by the "tuned" daemon if they add a profile for routers.

Re: How to turn anything into a router

#194

Post by shmerl »

drnick1 wrote: post #157
shmerl wrote: post #55

It becomes harder if you try to do it with 10 Gbps. Most CPUs struggle with it without dedicated accelerator chips.

Absolutely not. My 8700k is able to saturate a 25Gbps link without breaking a sweat. It could still push more than 4Gbps of encrypted traffic (Wireguard tunnel).

Sure, what I mean is common router CPUs. High end desktop CPU won't break a sweat.

Re: How to turn anything into a router

#195

Post by thomasjudge »

To me the single nic/double nic decision is a tradeoff between simplicity and complexity, and where you want that complexity to live. A single nic may be physically "simpler" but you need additional software complexity with VLANS and a VLAN aware switch. A double nic is mabe physically more complex but it allows you to have a simpler software setup (no VLAN's)

Re: How to turn anything into a router

#196

Post by mayhemducks »

maybe_pablo wrote: post #86

I did kind of the opposite, I made my main beefy gaming computer the router, then connected to it a nice wireless AP in bridge mode to serve internet to the rest of the computers. That way I can have a local llm agent manage my network and firewall by simply asking.

good god man are you insane?

Re: How to turn anything into a router

#197

Post by jcalvinowens »

Bender wrote: post #193
jcalvinowens wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just curious if you'd benchmarked it. I've always guessed it makes no measurable difference for packet rates achievable on a residential internet connection, but never bothered to check.

Per the documentation it compensates for some overhead. The numbers on my hardware based on my usage patterns will not match the numbers on your hardware and your usage patterns. I have tested it on several different routers and saw a difference but by itself nothing to write home about in my testing . Just as there is the concept of a death by a thousand cuts, there are also notable improvements by adjusting each la…

On the other hand, I can think of a lot of things I've seen done and done myself because they were "obviously" beneficial, which turned out to make no difference or be slightly harmful when I rigorously tested them.

Finding the balance is hard. I find as I get older I'm less inclined to twiddle knobs, but that isn't necessarily a universally good thing :)

Re: How to turn anything into a router

#199

Post by Bender »

jcalvinowens wrote: post #197
Bender wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per the documentation it compensates for some overhead. The numbers on my hardware based on my usage patterns will not match the numbers on your hardware and your usage patterns. I have tested it on several different routers and saw a difference but by itself nothing to write home about in my testing . Just as there is the concept of a death by a thousand cuts, there are also notable improvements by adjusting each la…

On the other hand, I can think of a lot of things I've seen done and done myself because they were "obviously" beneficial, which turned out to make no difference or be slightly harmful when I rigorously tested them. Finding the balance is hard. I find as I get older I'm less inclined to twiddle knobs, but that isn't necessarily a universally good thing :)

Well like I said, some people like defaults because it is less cognitive load and some like to tweak things until they can't get better results. I believe that everyone should be able to choose their own path to satisfaction. If the defaults and fq_codel work for you then that is probably the right answer.

Re: How to turn anything into a router

#200

Post by hurricanepootis »

radlad wrote: post #85
lstodd wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not much different. FreeBSD's pf is a port of OpenBSD's pf, and nftables are heavily influenced by them. At this point I rather doubt the sanity of people still sticking to iptables tbh. So there is approximately one concept of "packet filter done right". UI madness is on UI authors.

The primary reason I stick to iptables instead of nft is that I already learned iptables decades ago, and some software I interact with still defaults to iptables and/or does not have full support for nft. Why do you doubt the sanity of people sticking to iptables? What makes nft compelling?

There is iptables-nft, which is iptables with an NFT backend.
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