I have many nerdy friends who have been Linux users for ages. But most of them don’t know such a thing as Openwrt exists or have never bothered to give it a try. It’s a very fun piece of software to play with and can be extremely useful for routing traffic. Wondering why it isn’t more popular/widely used.
I mean, what does one have to do to replace an ISP owned router and what are the benefits? How much does one have to know in order to setup a connection? How does one get connection details from the ISP owned router? How much does a replacement router cost?
My ISP owned router allows me to configure NAT forwarding, replace the DNS, setup a DMZ, assign static IPs to MACs, turn off the internet at specific times (e.g at night), configure parental controls (allows websites, internet access) per device, and probably a few other things I haven’t discovered yet.
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If you mean a DSL modem or cable DOCSIS, I don’t think those are easily replaceable. But you can definitely put an OpenWRT device right behind it and use that. It’s pretty straightforward (plug in the upstream side, wait for it to get an address, done).
As for how much you need to know… okay. That’s a tricky question because, the most you mess with OpenWRT, the more some stuff becomes automatic, and that makes it easy to forget things. That’s not on you, that’s on me.
That said, thinking about it a little, the defaults are pretty workable right after installation. You’ll have to set an admin password on the OpenWRT box (it nags you until you do these days), which should be familiar. Turning up wifi is a little tricky at first. I would recommend reading through the quickstart guide once or twice before digging into OpenWRT configuration because it lays out all of the basics that you need to get going. It’s about as well written and useful as the manuals for access points were way back when.
One thing I would recommend is, if you build an OpenWRT box, setting it up before you plug it in and use it as your network gateway. It’s much easier to poke at it without having “When is my network going to come back up?” rattling around in the back of your mind.
For my ISP it’s actually cheaper to not use their modem+WiFi router as they charge a monthly lease on the equipment. I declined it and they provided me with a modem for free. All I have to do is plug the modem to my own router and that’s it!
The features you listed seems pretty standard to all routers these days.
You and @[email protected] have very different experiences 😄
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Haha, true. I was referring to routers specifically, not the all in one’s.
You can run a VPN like wire guard, ad blockers such as Adguard Home or pihole or even media servers on your openwrt router.
I see. Well, I have a homeserver for that, which runs all my services, so an openwrt router wouldn’t be an upgrade.
But probably without a homeserver, an openwrt router would make sense and use less energy.
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Most the things you mentioned are barely doable on some of the modern all in one modems where I live.
On mine I’ve got separate wi-fi networks for inside and guest, I run zenarmor for ads and malicious junk, I run a proxy, I do my DNS on it for all my internal docker instances, and more. I realize I am doing more than your average person, though.
I’ve always set the CPE modem to full bridge and put a router inside that I can control fully. Then you can swap equipment at will if you need to.