Hello All!

I just purchased a Intel Celeron box from AliExpress to replace (and hopefully improve) the functions of my raspberry pi running wg-easy and pihole. I’d like this new box to handle DHCP, firewalling/ad blocking, and act as my wireguard server.

Currently I’m connecting my Internet modem (thankfully not a router, so no NAT) to my TPlink Archer AX21’s WAN port and then using the LAN ports to connect to my devices. I see that I can turn off NAT on the TPLink, but I assume I wouldn’t be able to use the new device as a DHCP server if I do, right? I could put the TPLink in AP mode but I’m not sure if that shuts off the WAN or LAN ports.

Is the best move to leave the TPLink in router mode (I’m not sure this matters) and plug the firewall into one of the LAN ports? I can do this but it’ll require some re-running of cables so I wanted to check first.

  • StillEnglish
    2·
    9 months ago

    OPNsense is a gateway/firewall/DHCP/router my network looks like this

    optical to Ethernet conversion (the isp’s things) -> opnsense box -> network switch -> all other device (including wifi APs)

    all traffic gets routed thru the opnsense box as it is the gateway to my network, runs the ipv4 nat and DHCP server

    router in their comment refers to the the one that actually touches the Internet