6 ms·

I've stopped buying consumer routers for my home and instead buy small dual gig network x86 boards and put OpenWRT on it. OpenWRT is super nice now. Clean simpl

I've stopped buying consumer routers for my home and instead buy small dual gig network x86 boards and put OpenWRT on it. OpenWRT is super nice now. Clean simple UI. Does everything I need, is open source and I have access to the entire system. Extremely happy with it. I graph my data in/out with grafana. When a new IP or MAC shows up on my network I get a push notification on my phone (I wrote a small script to do this). Really great to have options to do what I want. Also it runs wireguard.

sigjuice 6y ago
Which x86 boards would you recommend for this? Thanks!
- ronnier 6y ago
  There's a ton of options. But I'm using this one ... https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086MK4YB8 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086MK4YB8 It also has a SIM slot so you can fallback to LTE if your main internet goes down. I should mention. This doesn't have wifi. I buy distinct access points that are POE powered. For those, i use the WAX-610.
  - zokier 6y ago
    Wifi is the Achilles heel here. For example as far as I can google, that device has quite old Intel Wifi chipset which means 802.11AC only and no AX, firmware blobs, and worst of all apparently no AP mode support on 5GHz(!!!??). So not the best choice as a (wireless) router. That being said, I don't know what Wifi chipset would be really good option right now.
    - sliken 6y ago
      Would just handle routing and wifi separately. Ubiquiti has a wifi-6 AP for $99 (2x2) and a "LR" version with 4x4 for $179. Then you can add whatever router you want and not have to worry about what next years wifi standard is.
      - alyandon 6y ago
        Pretty much the route I went when I finally got fed up with brick and mortar store routers - Mikrotik router + Ubiquiti AP.
      - ksec 6y ago
        One thing I never got round to figure out, these AP are still on 1Gbps Ethernet, but the LE WiFi 6 support 2.5Gbps on 5Ghz alone?
        KozmoNau7 6y ago
        I absolutely see your point and understand the confusion. The thing is that those kinds of speeds are not realistically possible. Ubiquiti claims "2.4Gbps" on 5Ghz in the specs, but it's one of those marketing things, like how TP-Link claims to sell a "11Gbps" router, which is just them adding together all the absolute peak data rates together times how many simultaneous streams it can support. It's marketing nonsense, just like those wall wart-powered PC surround speaker systems that promise "3000 WATTS OF POWER". No client device will ever get near those promised ultimate maximum speeds, because most client hardware is 2x2 streams (two receive, two transmit) or rarely 3x3 for high-end devices. The client is the limiting factor, it doesn't matter if the router is 4x4 or 8x8. If you look at the matrix of possible data rates, 802.11ax can do up to 1.2Gbps per stream, and can obviously use two simultaneous streams, that's where they get the claimed 2.4Gbps figure. But you can only get that bandwidth if you use 160MHz wide channels, which severely cuts down on the number of available channels. If you can detect any other 5Ghz networks from where you want to set up your AP, I would strongly advise against trying to use 160MHz wide channels, and even 80MHz wide channels can be troublesome in apartment buildings. For an enterprise deployment with multiple APs to cover entire floors and buildings, forget it. 40MHz wide channels are the realistic choice in that scenario. That's why Wifi 6E with the additional new 6GHz spectrum is much more interesting than 802.11ax. But let's say you can run 160MHz wide channels with no interference, your client device can support it and you're close enough to the AP so your connection is strong enough to actually get that promised 2.4Gbps PHY speed. It's theoretically possible, at least. Well, then you go ahead and subtract 40% for combined overhead in the wireless communication and protocols. That puts us at 1.4Gbps throughput. For a single device under 100% optimal conditions. I'm sure Ubiquiti crunched the numbers and figured it wasn't worth it to put 2.5Gbps ports on their APs, especially considering 99.9% of them will be end up plugged into corporate 1Gbps PoE switches. Can you even get reasonably priced 24/48-port 2.5Gbps PoE switches?
  - maccard 6y ago
    That's $450, plus tax plus labour for a wifi setup. It's a really hard sell compared to google mesh wifi pick for anyone other than a die hard fan
    - ronnier 6y ago
      There are definitely cheaper ways. But it's a hobby and I enjoy it.
      - maccard 6y ago
        Cant argue with the hobby aspect!
- amarshall 6y ago
  I don’t use OpenWRT (just a plain-old Linux distro), but PCEngines APU2 is pretty cheap and fast enough to run on a 1 Gbps WAN connection. https://pcengines.ch/apu2.htm https://pcengines.ch/apu2.htm
  - minimaul 6y ago
    You may struggle if your ISP requires PPPoE, but otherwise this is a great pick :)
  - jacob019 6y ago
    I second this recommendation. Using one for a business. Added an LTE card to it for backup. Running Debian, very stable, low energy usage, more than enough power for gigabit routing, VPN, and some server proceses. Booting off of a real mSATA SSD, much better than eMMC.
  - DrPhish 6y ago
    Also chiming in on this: I've been running OpenBSD on dozens of PC-Engines boxes for over a decade (first Alix and then APU2), usually as a full-on firewall HA pair with CARP/pfsync. The APU2 is VERY capable, hardware-wise, and a bargain at the price they sell it. I've had flash memory die, but never had hardware fail otherwise. I've also done wireless deployments with APU2 and a wifi card, and the range was not great. Things also might be better with better antennas, or under Linux where drivers are likely more mature. I've never run anything but OpenBSD on them.
- c0l0 6y ago
  I recently reviewed my (imho absolutely recommendable) pick here: https://johannes.truschnigg.info/reviews/2021-01_fwbox/ https://johannes.truschnigg.info/reviews/2021-01_fwbox/ Hth :)
  - sliken 6y ago
    Looks pretty awesome, was hoping for at least three 2.5 Gbit ports though. Know of a variation with 2.5Gbit ports? Hardkernel has a J4115 Celeron (10 watt max tdp) board with max 32GB ram (two sodimm slots), and 2 x 2.5Gbit ports. They also have a 4 x 2.5Gbit board you can add. So relatively low power, 6 x 2.5Gbit ports, plenty of ram for running any network services you want. No idea how well OpenWRT or similar would be supported though.
    - c0l0 6y ago
      I've not seen such a design yet, but if you don't need that kind of bandwidth for your WAN link (and I guess you won't - but tell me otherwise, and I will certainly be a wee bit jealous ;)), you can always just attach a switch with 2.5Gbps port speed to one of the 1Gbps ports of such a box. (Just be careful what you buy if you need VLAN support for those ports/that segment). You probably won't need a six-port variant in that case, which makes cheaper and more compact designs an option. As for 2.5Gbps Ethernet NICs with OpenWrt - I guess it depends on the particular component/NIC. People I know have had rather bad results with 2.5Gbps Realtek NICs on Windows, and I don't know if the Linux drivers fare any better. Unless you really need the additional bandwidth, I'm pretty certain that you will have the all-around better experience when sticking to 1Gbps hardware for now.
- bentcorner 6y ago
  Depending on your bandwidth needs an old laptop + switch can suffice (using vlans and a one-armed router approach). I currently have an EdgeRouter-X running openwrt and are relatively happy with it. I think I could eek more bandwidth out of it but honestly I'd rather not fiddle with it. I have some Unifi AC-Pro access points and am pretty happy with those. Combined router/access points devices are the networking equivalent of TV/VCR combo devices.
artificialLimbs 6y ago
"...push notification..." Using Twilio?
- jjeaff 6y ago
  Probably something like pushbullet or pushover.
- kevindong 6y ago
  Not OP, but my preferred push notification provider is IFTTT. Their API for sending a push notification to my iPhone is just amazingly simple. Basically set the trigger (the "if this") to an incoming webhook and set the action (the "then that") to be sending a notification. https://ifttt.com/maker_webhooks https://ifttt.com/maker_webhooks https://ifttt.com/if_notifications https://ifttt.com/if_notifications
- ronnier 6y ago
  I use "Home Assistant" as my home automation hub and I send an HTTP request to its API (this is local on my network) and it has native push notification support. https://www.home-assistant.io https://www.home-assistant.io https://companion.home-assistant.io/docs/notifications/notifications-basic/ https://companion.home-assistant.io/docs/notifications/notif...
- joshspankit 6y ago
  Once you have the systems set up, you can do almost anything. Telegram, Slack, IFTTT, Email, SMS, Whatsapp, Instagram, Signal, even a custom command that connects to an SSH server on your phone through a VPN connection (eg Tailscale) and changes your lockscreen wallpaper to “new device connected with MAC 1E:AT:DE:AD:BE:EF” It’s all software
dmos62 6y ago
Initial investment and ongoing energy costs are probably quite different though, right?
- yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
  Initial investment sure, but ongoing maintenance shouldn't be any worse; you just run updates every now and again.
rektide 6y ago
> I've stopped buying consumer routers for my home and instead buy small dual gig network x86 boards and put OpenWRT on it. I hugely support the idea (or just using Debian), but what a sad sad sad sad sad state of affairs there is with trying to do this! There's the most limited, tiny, miniscule amount of wifi add-on cards one can buy with decent chipsets. Consumer offerings with consumer-targetting chips have never worked well for me (terrible performance with multiple clients, huge multi-second drop outs, low max client limits), and I spent years trying hard to make something work. The market feels basically reduced to one company, Compex, making PCIe & m.2 addons[1] one can maybe perhaps buy, that do a decent job, and their availability is somewhat scarce, and prices are pretty high. Imo DIY ought be such a commonsense straightforward alternative to these fancy routers. Alas it seems almost impossible to do, short of scrounging for some expensive, demanding Compex chips, and hoping the open source drivers are up to snuff (they're not always). And Compex prices have gone up and up and up. Their modern 4x4 m.2 card is $400[2], but hey, at least it's possible to buy something: without this card, we'd have nothing. Oh, and that card doesn't have x86 drivers available for it, only drivers for Qualcomm platforms. [1] https://compex.com.sg/wifi-module/ https://compex.com.sg/wifi-module/ [2] https://www.arrow.com/en/products/pn02.7/compex-systems-pte-ltd https://www.arrow.com/en/products/pn02.7/compex-systems-pte-...
sliken 6y ago
Hrm, I need a few more ports. I want at least four ports. Think OpenWRT would work well on something like this: https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h2plus/ https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h2plus/ It's pretty low power (TDP 10 watts or so for the CPU), pretty fast (for a router), max 32GB ram, and has an expansion board for 2.5Gbit x 4 on top of the 2.5Gbit x 2 on board. Was hoping to hook up two desktops and a NAS with 2.5Gbit, then run GigE for cameras, Roku, etc.
boring_twenties 6y ago
May I ask for more details about your graphing setup? I'm just using darkstat, which has the benefit of being dead simple and available via opkg. But, it's fairly limited. I already have a Grafana dashboard elsewhere on the network, so I'd be curious as to how you feed it with network stats from OpenWRT.
- ronnier 6y ago
  I can respond more later… but In short I publish the metrics to influxdb and then point grafana at inflixdb. There’s good articles out there that I followed.
  - boring_twenties 6y ago
    I see a number of articles talking about running collectd on the OpenWRT, is that what you're using?
    - ronnier 6y ago
      Yup. That’s it. Sorry haven’t had a chance to see down at my computer yet and get the details. But that’s what I’m using
      - boring_twenties 6y ago
        No worries, looks like there are plenty of articles on the topic. Thanks for getting me started!
        ronnier 6y ago
        No problem. Looked again and I can't find the exact article. Let me know if you need any specific configuration from me.
mr_woozy 6y ago
>When a new IP or MAC shows up on my network I get a push notification on my phone (I wrote a small script to do this). You should think about putting it online via github or similar. Probably many others would be interested in that functionality.

sigjuice 6y ago

Which x86 boards would you recommend for this? Thanks!

ronnier 6y ago
There's a ton of options. But I'm using this one ... https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086MK4YB8 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086MK4YB8 It also has a SIM slot so you can fallback to LTE if your main internet goes down. I should mention. This doesn't have wifi. I buy distinct access points that are POE powered. For those, i use the WAX-610.
- zokier 6y ago
  Wifi is the Achilles heel here. For example as far as I can google, that device has quite old Intel Wifi chipset which means 802.11AC only and no AX, firmware blobs, and worst of all apparently no AP mode support on 5GHz(!!!??). So not the best choice as a (wireless) router. That being said, I don't know what Wifi chipset would be really good option right now.
  - sliken 6y ago
    Would just handle routing and wifi separately. Ubiquiti has a wifi-6 AP for $99 (2x2) and a "LR" version with 4x4 for $179. Then you can add whatever router you want and not have to worry about what next years wifi standard is.
    - alyandon 6y ago
      Pretty much the route I went when I finally got fed up with brick and mortar store routers - Mikrotik router + Ubiquiti AP.
    - ksec 6y ago
      One thing I never got round to figure out, these AP are still on 1Gbps Ethernet, but the LE WiFi 6 support 2.5Gbps on 5Ghz alone?
      - KozmoNau7 6y ago
        I absolutely see your point and understand the confusion. The thing is that those kinds of speeds are not realistically possible. Ubiquiti claims "2.4Gbps" on 5Ghz in the specs, but it's one of those marketing things, like how TP-Link claims to sell a "11Gbps" router, which is just them adding together all the absolute peak data rates together times how many simultaneous streams it can support. It's marketing nonsense, just like those wall wart-powered PC surround speaker systems that promise "3000 WATTS OF POWER". No client device will ever get near those promised ultimate maximum speeds, because most client hardware is 2x2 streams (two receive, two transmit) or rarely 3x3 for high-end devices. The client is the limiting factor, it doesn't matter if the router is 4x4 or 8x8. If you look at the matrix of possible data rates, 802.11ax can do up to 1.2Gbps per stream, and can obviously use two simultaneous streams, that's where they get the claimed 2.4Gbps figure. But you can only get that bandwidth if you use 160MHz wide channels, which severely cuts down on the number of available channels. If you can detect any other 5Ghz networks from where you want to set up your AP, I would strongly advise against trying to use 160MHz wide channels, and even 80MHz wide channels can be troublesome in apartment buildings. For an enterprise deployment with multiple APs to cover entire floors and buildings, forget it. 40MHz wide channels are the realistic choice in that scenario. That's why Wifi 6E with the additional new 6GHz spectrum is much more interesting than 802.11ax. But let's say you can run 160MHz wide channels with no interference, your client device can support it and you're close enough to the AP so your connection is strong enough to actually get that promised 2.4Gbps PHY speed. It's theoretically possible, at least. Well, then you go ahead and subtract 40% for combined overhead in the wireless communication and protocols. That puts us at 1.4Gbps throughput. For a single device under 100% optimal conditions. I'm sure Ubiquiti crunched the numbers and figured it wasn't worth it to put 2.5Gbps ports on their APs, especially considering 99.9% of them will be end up plugged into corporate 1Gbps PoE switches. Can you even get reasonably priced 24/48-port 2.5Gbps PoE switches?
- maccard 6y ago
  That's $450, plus tax plus labour for a wifi setup. It's a really hard sell compared to google mesh wifi pick for anyone other than a die hard fan
  - ronnier 6y ago
    There are definitely cheaper ways. But it's a hobby and I enjoy it.
    - maccard 6y ago
      Cant argue with the hobby aspect!
amarshall 6y ago
I don’t use OpenWRT (just a plain-old Linux distro), but PCEngines APU2 is pretty cheap and fast enough to run on a 1 Gbps WAN connection. https://pcengines.ch/apu2.htm https://pcengines.ch/apu2.htm
- minimaul 6y ago
  You may struggle if your ISP requires PPPoE, but otherwise this is a great pick :)
- jacob019 6y ago
  I second this recommendation. Using one for a business. Added an LTE card to it for backup. Running Debian, very stable, low energy usage, more than enough power for gigabit routing, VPN, and some server proceses. Booting off of a real mSATA SSD, much better than eMMC.
- DrPhish 6y ago
  Also chiming in on this: I've been running OpenBSD on dozens of PC-Engines boxes for over a decade (first Alix and then APU2), usually as a full-on firewall HA pair with CARP/pfsync. The APU2 is VERY capable, hardware-wise, and a bargain at the price they sell it. I've had flash memory die, but never had hardware fail otherwise. I've also done wireless deployments with APU2 and a wifi card, and the range was not great. Things also might be better with better antennas, or under Linux where drivers are likely more mature. I've never run anything but OpenBSD on them.
c0l0 6y ago
I recently reviewed my (imho absolutely recommendable) pick here: https://johannes.truschnigg.info/reviews/2021-01_fwbox/ https://johannes.truschnigg.info/reviews/2021-01_fwbox/ Hth :)
- sliken 6y ago
  Looks pretty awesome, was hoping for at least three 2.5 Gbit ports though. Know of a variation with 2.5Gbit ports? Hardkernel has a J4115 Celeron (10 watt max tdp) board with max 32GB ram (two sodimm slots), and 2 x 2.5Gbit ports. They also have a 4 x 2.5Gbit board you can add. So relatively low power, 6 x 2.5Gbit ports, plenty of ram for running any network services you want. No idea how well OpenWRT or similar would be supported though.
  - c0l0 6y ago
    I've not seen such a design yet, but if you don't need that kind of bandwidth for your WAN link (and I guess you won't - but tell me otherwise, and I will certainly be a wee bit jealous ;)), you can always just attach a switch with 2.5Gbps port speed to one of the 1Gbps ports of such a box. (Just be careful what you buy if you need VLAN support for those ports/that segment). You probably won't need a six-port variant in that case, which makes cheaper and more compact designs an option. As for 2.5Gbps Ethernet NICs with OpenWrt - I guess it depends on the particular component/NIC. People I know have had rather bad results with 2.5Gbps Realtek NICs on Windows, and I don't know if the Linux drivers fare any better. Unless you really need the additional bandwidth, I'm pretty certain that you will have the all-around better experience when sticking to 1Gbps hardware for now.
bentcorner 6y ago
Depending on your bandwidth needs an old laptop + switch can suffice (using vlans and a one-armed router approach). I currently have an EdgeRouter-X running openwrt and are relatively happy with it. I think I could eek more bandwidth out of it but honestly I'd rather not fiddle with it. I have some Unifi AC-Pro access points and am pretty happy with those. Combined router/access points devices are the networking equivalent of TV/VCR combo devices.

artificialLimbs 6y ago

"...push notification..." Using Twilio?

jjeaff 6y ago
Probably something like pushbullet or pushover.
kevindong 6y ago
Not OP, but my preferred push notification provider is IFTTT. Their API for sending a push notification to my iPhone is just amazingly simple. Basically set the trigger (the "if this") to an incoming webhook and set the action (the "then that") to be sending a notification. https://ifttt.com/maker_webhooks https://ifttt.com/maker_webhooks https://ifttt.com/if_notifications https://ifttt.com/if_notifications
ronnier 6y ago
I use "Home Assistant" as my home automation hub and I send an HTTP request to its API (this is local on my network) and it has native push notification support. https://www.home-assistant.io https://www.home-assistant.io https://companion.home-assistant.io/docs/notifications/notifications-basic/ https://companion.home-assistant.io/docs/notifications/notif...
joshspankit 6y ago
Once you have the systems set up, you can do almost anything. Telegram, Slack, IFTTT, Email, SMS, Whatsapp, Instagram, Signal, even a custom command that connects to an SSH server on your phone through a VPN connection (eg Tailscale) and changes your lockscreen wallpaper to “new device connected with MAC 1E:AT:DE:AD:BE:EF” It’s all software

dmos62 6y ago

Initial investment and ongoing energy costs are probably quite different though, right?

yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
Initial investment sure, but ongoing maintenance shouldn't be any worse; you just run updates every now and again.

rektide 6y ago

> I've stopped buying consumer routers for my home and instead buy small dual gig network x86 boards and put OpenWRT on it. I hugely support the idea (or just using Debian), but what a sad sad sad sad sad state of affairs there is with trying to do this! There's the most limited, tiny, miniscule amount of wifi add-on cards one can buy with decent chipsets. Consumer offerings with consumer-targetting chips have never worked well for me (terrible performance with multiple clients, huge multi-second drop outs, low max client limits), and I spent years trying hard to make something work. The market feels basically reduced to one company, Compex, making PCIe & m.2 addons[1] one can maybe perhaps buy, that do a decent job, and their availability is somewhat scarce, and prices are pretty high. Imo DIY ought be such a commonsense straightforward alternative to these fancy routers. Alas it seems almost impossible to do, short of scrounging for some expensive, demanding Compex chips, and hoping the open source drivers are up to snuff (they're not always). And Compex prices have gone up and up and up. Their modern 4x4 m.2 card is $400[2], but hey, at least it's possible to buy something: without this card, we'd have nothing. Oh, and that card doesn't have x86 drivers available for it, only drivers for Qualcomm platforms. [1] https://compex.com.sg/wifi-module/ https://compex.com.sg/wifi-module/ [2] https://www.arrow.com/en/products/pn02.7/compex-systems-pte-ltd https://www.arrow.com/en/products/pn02.7/compex-systems-pte-...

sliken 6y ago

Hrm, I need a few more ports. I want at least four ports. Think OpenWRT would work well on something like this: https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h2plus/ https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-h2plus/ It's pretty low power (TDP 10 watts or so for the CPU), pretty fast (for a router), max 32GB ram, and has an expansion board for 2.5Gbit x 4 on top of the 2.5Gbit x 2 on board. Was hoping to hook up two desktops and a NAS with 2.5Gbit, then run GigE for cameras, Roku, etc.

boring_twenties 6y ago

May I ask for more details about your graphing setup? I'm just using darkstat, which has the benefit of being dead simple and available via opkg. But, it's fairly limited. I already have a Grafana dashboard elsewhere on the network, so I'd be curious as to how you feed it with network stats from OpenWRT.

ronnier 6y ago
I can respond more later… but In short I publish the metrics to influxdb and then point grafana at inflixdb. There’s good articles out there that I followed.
- boring_twenties 6y ago
  I see a number of articles talking about running collectd on the OpenWRT, is that what you're using?
  - ronnier 6y ago
    Yup. That’s it. Sorry haven’t had a chance to see down at my computer yet and get the details. But that’s what I’m using
    - boring_twenties 6y ago
      No worries, looks like there are plenty of articles on the topic. Thanks for getting me started!
      - ronnier 6y ago
        No problem. Looked again and I can't find the exact article. Let me know if you need any specific configuration from me.

mr_woozy 6y ago

>When a new IP or MAC shows up on my network I get a push notification on my phone (I wrote a small script to do this). You should think about putting it online via github or similar. Probably many others would be interested in that functionality.