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Ask Slashdot: Best Open Source Project For a Router/Wi-Fi Access Point?
An anonymous reader writes "My wireless router just died. I have an old netbook lying around that has a wired network interface and a wireless one. The wireless card is supported in master mode by Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD. What does Slashdot recommend I use to turn it into a router/wireless access point? DD-WRT? pfSense? Smoothwall? Fedora/Ubuntu/OpenBSD with a manual configuration? I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty and I know what I'm doing, but I want as close to zero maintenance as possible."
If you want something powerful but maintenance free then DD-WRT on dedicated router hardware is the way to go. Running an ARM system-on-chip without active cooling and everything on flash memory is going to be far more reliable than any kind of PC set up. DD-WRT does pretty much anything you want and you can get a root shell if you want.
For what it's worth I prefer Buffalo hardware. It's robust and performs well.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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pfSense is a great open source router distro and should have no problem running on your net book. However, Sophos UTM/Astaro Security Gateway is a commercial product that is free for personal use. I recommend it if you need any UTM features such as gateway AV, IPS/IDS, Spam Filtering, and centrally managed AV.
either, but there are also Zeroshell and ClearOS.
I'm not afraid of getting my hands dirty and I know what I'm doing, but I want as close to zero maintenance as possible."
DD-WRT. Pick a good router with a fast cpu in it if you plan on running P2P with it. My high-end Asus 'black knight' (one of the recommended high-end dd-wrt models) shits itself if you have more than about a 800 or so simultanious connections, because the CPU isn't fast enough. I would not recommend using a 'netbook' with a wifi card simply because it consumes a lot of power and you'll make up in lower power consumption costs what you'd spend on a purpose-built router in about 15-18 months.
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OpenWRT Attitude Adjustment 12.04; loads of packages available from official repositories, nice webinterface, and no commercial side selling product activation keys for certain features (like DD-WRT).
I recently got a Microtik router running RouterOS, and I have to say I love it functionality at it's price point. Even supports BGP if you are that way inclined. My DSL was annoying me, so I turned it to bridged mode, and now the new router does everything else. NAT seems faster, with pings being 3ms quicker which I was astonished at. My other idea was an old desktop running linux, but I worked out the pricing for hardware vs electricity. And within a year (in Ireland) I am going to save money with the Microtik router. The router uses about 7W fully loaded, whereas my desktop would be churning 250 watts fully loaded... This is my one: http://routerboard.com/RB2011UAS-2HnD-IN
My wireless router just died.
Well, can it be fixed? Maybe it's just a dead AC/DC transformer or blown cap.
Using an old laptop as a router isn't the most efficient use of your resources (time, money, energy, etc.). Sure, it can be done......but a router can be had for around $20 that is probably as good or better (I'm assuming your old laptop is at least 5 years old and probably G at best). Spending more would get you a better router (and if you shop around, even open-source compatible), but if the goal is to go on the cheap (assumed because you want to reuse a laptop), I'd still get a stand-alone router.
But if you insist on going that route, go with Linux and manual configuration. Then you can use the laptop for other things as well. Print server, web server, etc.
But in the end, giving the laptop to a group such as this: http://www.interconnection.org/ is better use of the technology.
It's a bad idea to use a netbook from the perspective of power consumption. Compared to a dedicated system (often ARM or MIPS), a netbook's going to suck up a lot of power that could be better put to other uses. I'd personally suggest getting a commercially-available router that's well-supported by OpenWRT, such as a Netgear WNDR3800.
If you must use this netbook, then your best options are probably OpenBSD or Debian (stable), depending on hardware support and what you're comfortable with.
OpenWRT on cheapo commodity hardware - personally I'm using TL-WR1043ND, 4x1gigE/300mbps 2.4ghz N, USB storage is best bang for 50 bucks.
The system is reasonably specced to run openvpn gateway for home network and serve USB drive miniNAS via smb.
DD-WRT is basically GUI polish for people who don't wan't to delve into scary command line, but otherwise nowhere near as flexible as openwrt is.
I'm using an atom cpu with several onboard intel gig-e ports.
fanless and has been pretty reliable so far. my 50mbps cable connection stays up and the 'router' has not needed rebooting in the month or two that I've been using it so far.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
In my opinion: Unless you're planning on also running servers (web, FTP, mail, etc) on your new "router/access point", then it's complete overkill to use even a netbook for that. Additionally, you'd be potentially opening yourself up to a world of hurt since your netbook, being a general-purpose computing device at heart, is going to be more vulnerable to outside attack than a purpose-built router/gateway/wireless access point.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Keep in mind that while a dedicated consumer-grade wifi router draws around 5W, a netbook will draw 20-25W (possibly more).
Although that may not sound like much, a 24/7 load of 20W, at $0.15/KWH will cost you $2.16/month. You will break even vs just buying a low-end (Rosewill, etc) new router in about 10 months, or two years for a mid-consumer-grade LinkSys/DLink.
Admittedly, your solution will give you just about the highest-end wireless router you can get (limited by the radio in your netbook, of course), theoretically supporting any networking feature available with Linux. In practice though, how often do you really need anything beyond WPA2, IPv4 routing with a basic "block everything except what I allow" firewall, and perhaps (if you use VPN a lot) IPSec support?
I use a build of Tomato by Shibby on my Asus "Black Knight" RT-N66U . It has tons of features and is easy to setup. You could also try some of the other Tomato builds.
http://tomatousb.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomato_(firmware)
Look at the CeroWRT project (http://www.bufferbloat.net/projects/cerowrt). They have a fork of OpenWRT that is kept up to date quite often, and includes a lot of fixes for bufferbloat issues. The firmware gives a very low latency experience with very little effort.
You could do worse than take a look at http://www.clearfoundation.com/ and the community edition of ClearOS.
In my opinion it provides Cisco-like capability on any old PC you have lying around. That old PC almost certainly has more power and capability than any typical end-user-grade router in the $30 to $120 market.
Disclaimer: I have no relationship with ClearFoundation except that of a user since 2003.
Twice as crazy as I would be if I was half as crazy as I am.
Many people say to get a router instead because of power consumption, wireless signal strength and stability.
You have to work out the power use yourself (some figures have already been posted by pla). Keep in mind though that a laptop using 20 W also provides 20 W of heating. If you're in a hot climate, you may lose twice by having to run the AC harder. If in a cold climate, with electric (resistive) heating, the 20 W may essentially be free most of the year. Also, if you can eliminate other devices (like a VPN gateway) with the laptop, that could be a win. On the other hand, if you need wired network it seems you can't even get away with an extra switch, as the laptop doesn't have enough ports -- here the dedicated ones clearly win.
The wireless signal can be tested. If you can boot a live-cd you could set up host AP mode and test speed by transferring data and latency with ping.
The stability is hard to gauge. Both netbooks and consumer routers can be quite bad. I ran a Dell Insiron 1501 as a router for a few years and didn't have any problems (except a ExpressCard NIC, which was later replaced).
I wouldnt' go for the laptop due to not having wired network, but otherwise I would definitely pick it. It's great for hosting small DIY services like a webcam. I wouldn't host internal-only services beyond those typically hosted on routers, for security reasons (e.g. if the webserver first binds to the local interface, then after an update binds to both interfaces).
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Hands down the best choice for commodity hardware where you it it to 'just work' once its setup.
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I've done this in the past. My routing computer's wifi has never been able to compare with a wifi router, but if you ignore the "wan" port and plug your linux box into one of the other ports, you can use the wifi router for wifi only (essid, etc) and your own router for how traffic flows to the internet and to your wired network. The best of both worlds.
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I pay for 2 static IP addresses from my ISP, but using OpenBSD I can actually use 4. Here's how it works:
OpenBSD with pf makes a fantastic router/firewall. I'm sure the same thing can be done with other OS's, I just happen to find pf to be very good. OpenBSD's documentation is also great.