This was mentioned in another thread discussing choices, itās a neat project but not sure it will take off unless they can get OPNsense or pfsense running out it. They can sell it with openWRT, but then you are possibly competing with devices like those from gli-net.
I also do not like the choice of processor, but he went over why this was the choice in a previous video.
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Arenāt those already your āhigh endā router choices, especially for those DIY people building home networks? Which is why Iām not convinced this project makes a lot of sense. However more options are always good I guess.
Oh, Iām not convinced this makes sense either, but an interesting exercise indeed. Maybe it is the lower cost OPNsense device that we didnāt know we needed, I requested a DEC2770 in my budget next year, figured that I would spend that much on a decent Supermicro to build it.
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Keeping in mind, my network rack is at home and most of my tech stuff, is primarily done just because I like messing around with this stuff. When I went to upgrade to 10G (I was using a NUC, dual 2.5G), I looked at the OPNsense hardware, as well as Supermicro, and several other vendors. I ended up building a mini-itx machine using a 265K (did stay copper, X550-T2 card) (I only need the two ports). I still ended up cheaper than the options I was looking at, and still way overkill (especially just for OPNsense).
I know Iām pickier than most as I was using a NUC before because I wanted something that I knew would get BIOS updates, and had a power supply that I could trust. However, most posts I read online just recommend the cheap Chinese boxes for this. They do have good specs for the price. I like projects like this, but I have a feeling itās definitely going to be a very niche market.
I think it worth mentioning that you can put vyos on it. Which is a very stable router OS. Tomaz also mentioned building their own webUI and OS from scratch in his videos. If that is true then we might have competition which will be good.
Iād like to see them hit up there with UniFi, pfsense and opnsense. But seeing how long it is take if them to get the hardware down. It will take them even longer in the software development phase also, so it wonāt be anytime soon.
If I were them Iād take vyos and put a webUI in front of it. The licensing should allow for that. Then they can brand it to whatever they want. Or put āpowered by vyosā. Iām not a license expert.
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For my lab it is either an HP T620 or HP T740 for a router. If all I need is a simple rout to hit internet, i also have a couple cheap gli-net pocket routers to use. Work hets better stuff when budget allows.
If it was a choice of WRT or OpnSense, the latter would be my āits gotta be that one or noneā choice.
I would also like to see competition and some open platforms in this space. This is why this project intrigued me.
DEC2770 ā OPNsenseĀ® Rack Security Appliance ā OPNsenseĀ® Shop this looks very nice, if thats what you were referring to.
Yes, thatās what Iām requesting for work. Not at all cheap by most standards, but Iād expect to pay that much for a decent 1u server. I might get a little faster processor with a DIY, but not sure it is worth the effort.
Iāve been watching this. It looks like the end result is going to be a really high spec device that runs OpenWRT.
While interesting to watch, Iām not really sure the juice is worth the squeeze here. It seems expensive relative to the performance youād get for more than just routing purposes. That CPU seems under powered for a bunch of packages on top of OpenWRT, so youāve got great packet throughput, but itās otherwise pretty handicapped.
Iād be happy to be proven wrong, and Iām actually subscribed to the channel. But I donāt think Iād switch from pfSense to that anytime soon. I just donāt see the advantages.
Itās also single board, so a failure of something means the whole thing is an expensive brick, itās pretty easy to replace x86 stuff, which is comforting for a homelabber.
The biggest thing here is speed vs watts, their power consumption will be pretty low while still providing 10gbps routing.