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Old laptops also make killer home routers. I recently replaced my consumer grade wireless router with an old Thinkpad in a router-on-a-stick configuration + PoE
by Fwirt 4y ago
Old laptops also make killer home routers. I recently replaced my consumer grade wireless router with an old Thinkpad in a router-on-a-stick configuration + PoE switch + dedicated access point and my home network is better for it in just about every way. Added bonus that it can run a simple webserver and run some light home automation tasks without breaking a sweat.
Of course the downside is that you lose a nice web GUI for managing port forwarding and stuff, but if you're SSHing in to adjust iptables on your router you probably don't need the web interface all that much anyway.
It's probably true that an off-the-shelf router uses less power, but if you already have an old laptop lying around, at what point do you break even on the electricity cost vs. buying more efficient hardware? Especially when the difference is on the order of a few watts.
- ta988 4y agoYou could install OPNsense (or any other router OS out there) and get a webUI out of it. I wonder if OpenWRT works on x86
- LeSaucy 4y agoA killer solution is to run OPNsense in a virtual machine, and then adjust the virtual<->physical NIC mappings when moving between hosts. Its super powerful and has plugins galore (haproxy, nginx proxy, dynamic dns updaters, openvpn etc). I run two VM's in high availablity mode and can take down any virtualization host without any downtime(important with WFH).
- ta988 4y agoHave you looked into OpenVSwitch? It may solve some of that too.
- Damogran6 4y agoPlus built in UPS.
- throw93232 4y agoAs a router? How many gigabit ethernet ports can you put on such thing? Also on electricity you may break even in a year or two.
- piperswe 4y agoA USB 2.0 ethernet port maxing out at a few hundred Mbps would suffice for WAN for most people, and the built-in gigabit port can be connected to a switch