So, my faithful router is aging, badly. Time to let it "go to the farm" to live out it's days in peace. I've looked at what I can get out there to replace it. There is a lot of really neat networking tech out there these days, some more friendly to turbocharged 3rd-party firmware and some not.
A lot of really expensive hardware too. The most coherent and simple to set up thing to do would be to get a bunch of things that do one thing well-- as in one machine to do the thinking, a good switch, two access points. That was a pricey option and required several things.
I am willing to forgo some coherence to have it all in one unit that that the manufacturer expected me to load with third-party software. Having it all in one unit also gives me a lot of frugal upgrade options. Additionally, it is the least expensive way to meet all the criteria I have for such a device-- which has been missing in my current setup.
Having done a lot of reading, the software is the sticky part. Some of it is really great, but until you try it first hand and it works as expected then also is nice to use.
It was neat seeing what I had documented get shared so much when I wrote about my OpenSolaris/OpenIndiana ZFS file server build several years ago and I was kind of hoping to do the same with this-- maybe trying to do a better job this time with your help. Starting with that I have almost $400 of equipment to play with in the immediate future. What would you like to see me try? Are there any tests you would like to see?
I tried to not be ounce wise and pound foolish. What would it cost for me to build a router that I love? Turns out possibly $400 if everything works out as expected.
Yesterday I booted the motherboard for the first time.
I'm still waiting on the 802.11n package and a mini-PCIe to PCIe card converter (with antennae!) from dx.com. So, no wireless, but getting my USB flash drives loaded up with the installers will take some time and then there's the sitting down and doing it... They will be here in plenty of time.
Starting the documentation now.
The following sections are what I think I should compile to document this. Stay tuned while I write them. I have my ears open if you have any input.
5 Sections
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-Parts (Where sourced from, part, shipping/handling, & total cost when I can make a line item break down).
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-OpenWRT - Setup Notes & Bash Script (Not even sure if OpenWRT has bash, read ash through busybox-- I'll find out as I go.)
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-pfSense - Setup Notes & Bash Script
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-IPFire - Setup Notes & Bash Script
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-My conclusion and thoughts, metrics and comparisons; the opinion part based on the metrics and a few days of use.
The build is in the context of the following reqs:
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Use of Multi-Core 64-bit Processing. (Fanless Intel Quad Core J2900)
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Use of DDR-3... or better. (8GB)
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Use of Gigabit LAN Ports. (5, one onboard, four via Intel PRO/1000 VT)
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Use of 802.11b/g/n/ac. (one 3x3 MIMO 802.11ac with AP Mode, one 3x3 MIMO 802.11n with AP Mode)
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Use of USB for printing. (USB 3.0 -- and a paralell port...)
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Use of mass storage possibly by PCI-E, SATA, MSATA, and/or SD-Card(micro || full-size). (two SATA2 ports)
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Use of USB for mass storage. (two at the back plate, three via motherboard headers)
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Low voltage and low power consumption. (72 W)
To the following ends:
I stream a lot of video via my Roku, the kids watch a lot of Netflix in the morning, I have a half dozen hardwired machines in my office that make fair use of gigabit speed file transfers, the router & two other machines use DDNS, SSH via NAT happens, a couple IP cameras store images & send MJPEG streams, an old HP LaserJet USB->Paralell network prints, and more and more wireless devices as time creeps on over g & n wireless adapters.
I am ~70% happy with my current setup. Preferably, I'd like to run a little web-server & file server right from my firewall/router as well as have more SSIDs. This is the missing 30%. I'm already serving a site from a separate machine-- but seriously, the traffic is so low that I feel guilty for burning the watts. And I also wouldn't even consider giving up my dedicated file server, but somewhere to quickly stash files I don't have too much care for would be nice.
I have my Roku on the same wireless as my own personal botnet I play with, I'd like separate APs so that my internal traffic doesn't affect my kid watching Netflix in the morning when I do need the TV to be a babysitter (I know, I know, just turn off the machines talking to each other... but, I don't).
I'll keep my eye on the reddit posts, hope to hear some words of wisdom or things I should do some heavy reading about that will make my task easier. Thanks.
