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I can recommend building your own OpenBSD router. Installing OpenBSD is easy, and once you have it installed the base system contains everything you need to set

I can recommend building your own OpenBSD router. Installing OpenBSD is easy, and once you have it installed the base system contains everything you need to set up a router along with excellent documentation for everything. OpenBSD people also take security seriously, so if you stick with the base system, you'll be fine. That said, you'd be fine on Linux too, depending on the distribution; it's not like Linux-based systems are somehow fundamentally insecure. I really can't stress enough how good the documentation is; in the Linux world I'm used to googling and wikis and whatnot because most man pages for the components of a distro are either nonexistent or incomplete, but with OpenBSD, you'll do fine with just man and apropos. It's considered a bug if the documentation is missing something. OpenBSD is a fantastic OS for learning about all kinds of UNIX and networking stuff if you're not opposed to spending some time reading good quality documentation.

ac29 7y ago
Any recommendations for hardware to run an OpenBSD router on? Support for ARM and MIPS devices seems pretty limited, leaving x86 stuff like Protectli or PC-Engines (which are both pretty expensive for what you get).
- __turbobrew__ 7y ago
  PCEngines is the way to go from what I have seen. I installed OpenBSD on an APU2C4 and it has been rock solid for the last year and a bit. In terms of cost you will be hard pressed to find a x86 SOC with 4 I tel NICs and a serial port at a cheaper price.
  - ac29 7y ago
    I'd imagine its plenty enough for a home internet router, but it stings a bit to pay ~$150 for a system with a 2013 CPU (and a very low end one, at that).
    - kjs3 7y ago
      OpenBSD will run fine in this role on sub-US$50 refurb Core 2 PC or a sub-$100 Atom box if power is an issue. Even a P2/P3 can keep up with anything but the highest end broadband.
- kjs3 7y ago
  My current home OpenBSD gateway runs on one of the small Atom-based (Z3700-series maybe?) NUC-alikes (I forget who made it) I picked up 2 years ago. I think I spent less than US$200 on Amazon for it. Very low power and I doubt the CPU has ever hit 5% utilization. If you go this way, make sure you can load an alternative OS on it; apparently some of these things refuse to load anything but Windows 10.
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
  NetBSD seems similar. You could try [1] https://www.invisible.ca/arm/ https://www.invisible.ca/arm/ to get a feeling for what will be supported by the (soon to be?) next release from there. I'm unaware of someone having put that together for OpenBSD, but think it should run on similar hardware. If so, then their Website is buggy for listing long obsolete devkits/boards only.
- chousuke 7y ago
  The price wasn't my primary concern; I got the APU because I wanted a system that's as close to fully open as you can get. Any x86 machine with decent NICs should work, however. The non-x86 alternatives I don't have much experience in save for an Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite, which works fine, but is a bit of a pain to operate because there's no syspatch support. If you just want a secure router at a low price, OpenWRT on a well-supported platform probably gets closest to that; I have an old TP-Link router in the closet somewhere that's over 10 years old now and could still run the latest version of OpenWRT.

ac29 7y ago

Any recommendations for hardware to run an OpenBSD router on? Support for ARM and MIPS devices seems pretty limited, leaving x86 stuff like Protectli or PC-Engines (which are both pretty expensive for what you get).

__turbobrew__ 7y ago
PCEngines is the way to go from what I have seen. I installed OpenBSD on an APU2C4 and it has been rock solid for the last year and a bit. In terms of cost you will be hard pressed to find a x86 SOC with 4 I tel NICs and a serial port at a cheaper price.
- ac29 7y ago
  I'd imagine its plenty enough for a home internet router, but it stings a bit to pay ~$150 for a system with a 2013 CPU (and a very low end one, at that).
  - kjs3 7y ago
    OpenBSD will run fine in this role on sub-US$50 refurb Core 2 PC or a sub-$100 Atom box if power is an issue. Even a P2/P3 can keep up with anything but the highest end broadband.
kjs3 7y ago
My current home OpenBSD gateway runs on one of the small Atom-based (Z3700-series maybe?) NUC-alikes (I forget who made it) I picked up 2 years ago. I think I spent less than US$200 on Amazon for it. Very low power and I doubt the CPU has ever hit 5% utilization. If you go this way, make sure you can load an alternative OS on it; apparently some of these things refuse to load anything but Windows 10.
LargoLasskhyfv 7y ago
NetBSD seems similar. You could try [1] https://www.invisible.ca/arm/ https://www.invisible.ca/arm/ to get a feeling for what will be supported by the (soon to be?) next release from there. I'm unaware of someone having put that together for OpenBSD, but think it should run on similar hardware. If so, then their Website is buggy for listing long obsolete devkits/boards only.
chousuke 7y ago
The price wasn't my primary concern; I got the APU because I wanted a system that's as close to fully open as you can get. Any x86 machine with decent NICs should work, however. The non-x86 alternatives I don't have much experience in save for an Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite, which works fine, but is a bit of a pain to operate because there's no syspatch support. If you just want a secure router at a low price, OpenWRT on a well-supported platform probably gets closest to that; I have an old TP-Link router in the closet somewhere that's over 10 years old now and could still run the latest version of OpenWRT.