First, a hardware question. I’m looking for a computer to use as a… router? Louis calls it a router but it’s a computer that is upstream of my whole network and has two ethernet ports. And suggestions on this? Ideal amount or RAM? Ideal processor/speed? I have fiber internet, 10 gbps up and 10 gbps down, so I’m willing to spend a little more on higher bandwidth components. I’m assuming I won’t need a GPU.
Anyways, has anyone had a chance to look at his guide? It’s accompanied by two youtube videos that are about 7 hours each.
I don’t expect to do everything in his guide. I’d like to be able to VPN into my home network and SSH into some of my projects, use Immich, check out Plex or similar, and set up a NAS. Maybe other stuff after that but those are my main interests.
Any advice/links for a beginner are more than welcome.
Just kinda flipped through his guide. It’s a bit dated on knowledge and techniques, even for beginners.
You don’t need a computer for a router. Get a router that ships with OpenWRT and start there. GL.iNet makes good and affordable stuff. Use that for your ad blocking, VPN, and so on to get started.
I’d just skip OpenVPN altogether and get started with Wireguard or Headscale/Tailscale.
If you want to run other heavier services, start out with a low-power minipc until you’re settled on what your needs or limitations are. You can get a very capable AMD minipc for $250-300, or an n100 low-power for a bit cheaper. Check out Minisforum units for this. Reliable, good price, and solid warranty.
If you deal in heavy storage, maybe consider adding a NAS to the mix, but maybe that’s a further steps. OpenWRT is a good starting point just to get your basic network services and remote access up, then just move on from there.
A good and fun starting point for some people is setting up Home Assistant on a minipc or Raspberry Pi (honestly, the costs of Pi boards now is insane. Might be good just to get the minipc).
This one was huge for me. OpenVPN is pretty heavy with CPU overhead, where as wireguard is almost free. I was getting throttled due to the overhead of OpenVPN and roasting the CPU on my Netgear R6350 (it’s what I had lying around). With wireguard I get nearly the same speeds as without a VPN and my loads are very reasonable.
Also with weaker routers like mine, be wary of trying to use QoS, this will probably not help network congestion and instead become a bottleneck (like it did for me). This is where a beefy dedicated router really shines.
Absolutely agree, another thing I’d add on is, dockerize everything. Louis brushes by it because he never bothered to learn but containers make almost everything better
Gl.iNet is a great value router, but if you want to do anything really interesting, it won’t do.
I have Slate AX chugging along, and have been eyeing teklager boxes to do actual routing, with slate as an access point.
This is a beginner. I wouldn’t try to overcomplicate it.
Good point.