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Lots of comments about moving to OPNSense -- anyone using something Linux-based that they would recommend as a comparable alternative? My impression is that th

Lots of comments about moving to OPNSense -- anyone using something Linux-based that they would recommend as a comparable alternative? My impression is that this might not exist yet (the currently available projects are significant lacking in either features or reliability), and that my odds of getting something user-friendly with tools like pfBlockerNG are even slimmer. I always feel so handicapped when something breaks on my router, due to being so much less familiar with BSD, and due to it being an older / limited FreeBSD release (many things missing from the pf repos). Just last week my pfsense upgrade resulted in a non-booting system, and I felt helpless (user error -- zpool upgrade but didn't upgrade something about the boot directory). I didn't have my usual tools, so I ended up having to install ZFS support to an old RPi3 running NixOS just so I could look around and get the ZFS parts sorted and figure out what happened. (Thankfully I eventually found an old mailing list thread with some obscure incantation that I ran from a pfsense installer usb and resurrected things.) The whole time I just really wished that I could have been on a Linux machine with my familiar GNU tools!

lanman95 3y ago
I am really happy with IPFire on my home network. It doesn't have all the advanced features that PF/OPNSense have, but it's suitable for my needs.
bravetraveler 3y ago
I use a Linux box with at least two fast NICs - why not try it out? The setup can be rough if one isn't that familiar/has high requirements... but making a router and so on is pretty basic stuff. Basic in the sense that it's easy to do both well and terrifyingly incorrectly. I'm curious about home users who truly need an interface because they're in there fiddling so much I use Ansible to manage the config of mine, but that's more for rebuilding. I look at the thing maybe twice a year

lanman95 3y ago

I am really happy with IPFire on my home network. It doesn't have all the advanced features that PF/OPNSense have, but it's suitable for my needs.

bravetraveler 3y ago

I use a Linux box with at least two fast NICs - why not try it out? The setup can be rough if one isn't that familiar/has high requirements... but making a router and so on is pretty basic stuff. Basic in the sense that it's easy to do both well and terrifyingly incorrectly. I'm curious about home users who truly need an interface because they're in there fiddling so much I use Ansible to manage the config of mine, but that's more for rebuilding. I look at the thing maybe twice a year