Hi Folks,
I host a nextcloud instance, a NAS, and a few content portals for things like ebooks and music (internal only). I’ll be migrating Smartthings to Home Assistant eventually. We’re going to be upgrading to fiber soon and I have the opportunity to rebuild my wife’s network with a long term outlook (we’ll likely be here for years). Currently we have an older eero mesh system over cable internet. My desk is right where the cable currently comes in so all my Ethernet devices can live near the router.
My question is this:
What am I missing out on as a self-hoster by using whatever equipment metronet gives me?
What am I missing out on as a regular internet user by using the default equipment.
Am I likely to be annoyed about where the fiber comes into the house?
If it makes sense to buy my own router or access point(s), what is a reasonable balance between “daddy Bezos please read all my emails” and “you’ll never be secure until you build a router from custom circuit boards you custom ordered and hand assembled in a secure area”.
I’d like to avoid complex configuration, but if I can surface advanced options when needed, that would be great.
My Linux knowledge is intermediate. My networking knowledge is begintermediate.
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I like OpenWRT but it does require knowledge and time to maintain.
You can strike a balance with higher-end (in quality) consumer or small business networking gear.
If it’s in your budget, I’d suggest buying a simple router like the Ubiquiti Edgerouter X, run some Ethernet and rely on a switch and access points for WiFi (I use Ubiquiti U6 Pro but I wouldn’t be too picky about it). I’ve never been into the “mesh” WiFi networking concept because it doesn’t make sense to use the air as your backhaul (if you can help it).
What I wouldn’t recommend is buying some beefed up consumer all-in-one router. It’ll cost a fortune, your coverage won’t be as good and once it’s time to upgrade you’ll be forced to replace the entire thing.
Hopefully this helps.
Those all in one routers are fun to play with assuming they aren’t Broadcom based. OpenWRT can do a lot
I usually play around with travel routers and OpenWRT but if I had an old router laying around maybe I’d do something fun with it.
What they say, plus I wouldn’t recommend Mikrotik HW, which I went with based on Reddit recommendations for much the same use case as yours. Pretty clunky to set up, had to debug some idiosyncracies with the help of the forums, their wireless gear is slow, and it all runs hot AF.
How recent is your experience with Mikrotik? How old is the hardware you tried out?
What am I missing out on as a regular internet user by using the default equipment.
You miss an understanding about what your devices do. Including the devices you got from your provider.
As a consequence, you remain clueless when your devices get attacked and taken over.
What am I missing out on as a self-hoster by using whatever equipment metronet gives me?
You miss the chance of securing your network.
As a self hoster, you are a little bit more attractive, and there are more possibilities of attacking your devices, than a typical PC or mobile user.
My suggestion is an extra router with OpenWRT between the metronet device and all your other stuff. You will get some better understanding just by configuring your OpenWRT for the first time. Their documentation is very good.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, automates assignment of IPs when connecting to a network DNS Domain Name Service/System IP Internet Protocol IoT Internet of Things for device controllers NAS Network-Attached Storage NAT Network Address Translation SSH Secure Shell for remote terminal access Unifi Ubiquiti WiFi hardware brand VPN Virtual Private Network VPS Virtual Private Server (opposed to shared hosting)
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Am I likely to be annoyed about where the fiber comes into the house?
That one depends on the company installing it. When I got it installed they asked me exactly where I wanted the fiber to terminate and ran it through the house to an outlet under my desk. So let them know and they might put it where you need it.
As for the router, I recommend buying a mini PC with at least 2 Ethernet ports and 4GB of RAM and running OPNsense. It’s great and will give you all the control you need. Or you can repurpose any old PC you have lying around and just add some Ethernet ports on a PCIE card.
I would suggest getting a router that runs OpenWRT or OPNsense. That will let you configure anything you need to. It’s open source firmware so it will respect your privacy.
If you go with OPNsense, you will need separate access points since it runs on a PC. The Unifi access points work well for that.
I’m ashamed to admit I totally forgot about ddwrt/openwrt. It’s been a decade or so since I messed with that. Good call.
OpenWRT and dd-wrt are very different. OpenWRT is as open as can be and dd-wrt is designed to be more compatible with Broadcom though special licensing.
Basically stick with OpenWRT or OPNsense. With OpenWRT you need to manually update to get security patches which can be inconvenient. I’m not sure about OPNsense.
Depends on how good the ISP router is. I’ve had one that had most of the advanced settings available, so I didn’t feel the need to change. For a while I had offloaded DHCP and DNS and VPN to a Raspberry Pi. It’s very much possible to make do with the ISP router. That ISP would let you passthrough the public IP to a box on your network which lets you do a lot of stuff without going into bridge mode, so I could make my server the target while still letting the router do the routing so if my server was down it didn’t take the whole network with it.
Then I got a bad one where it won’t even let you set up port forwards unless the device is registered over DHCP so my static stuff and VMs didn’t work. Got my EdgeRouter X back online to get my stuff done.
I do use VLANs and stuff now so it makes sense for me to use my own router. With everything getting breached these days, I have a VLAN just for my computers, another one for smart but trusted-ish devices (the TV’s gotta reach the NAS), one for IoT that’s completely shielded off.
What you’re missing out on depends a lot on what features you don’t have you could make use of. If you have like 3 devices using the network like I did when I lived alone, yeah you’re probably not going to miss out on the VLANs. But maybe you want to do ad blocking network-wide. Maybe you’d want to better prioritize interactive traffic like VoIP and video calls or games. Maybe you want a reverse proxy or VPN that works even if your home server is down. Maybe you want your kids to not hog all the bandwidth. There’s a lot of things a router can do.
So if the ISP router does everything you want and you’re happy with its performance, it’s fine. Just keep it in mind, when you start being like “I wish it had X and Y features” maybe consider an upgrade then.
If you have the option of not getting a router from your ISP, I would definitely recommend bringing your own. If they provide it regardless and you’d be replacing it through unofficial means, eh, if it works well…
Performance and how configurable things are, plus ease of use.
For instance, my default router/modem device from my ISP was super clunky and confusing. I needed to set up some custom port forwarding and firewall rules. The aftermarket router I bought was faster, had way better wireless coverage, and the UI was so much easier to set up the configs I needed.
So it’s up to you, from what you said, seems like you probably would be good with the default from your ISP.
Just turn on passthough mode so your device gets a public IP.
