Can you please tell me all about your DIY router?

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app⁩ to ⁨selfhosted@lemmy.world⁩

Now that I have time for hobbies again I wanna dive right in to building up a home lab. Right now I just have a Netgear router that reached end of life, and a NAS i’d like to make accessible remotely, and a DIY router seems like the correct next step for me. I’m very interested in ad-blocking network wide and someday I’d like to host my own little webpage, but for now I’m really just barely getting started.

I’m information gathering, I don’t know what I don’t know and my networking skills are pretty weak anyway. But even if your needs and desires have nothing to do with mine, I also just like to hear people talk about their set ups. Please? 🌞

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pHr34kY@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
When I retire my desktop PC, the old parts become my router. If you have two network ports, it can do it.

To warrant the power bill, it’s also a NAS, NVR, mail server, print server and web server.

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frongt@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Opnsense on whatever. Plus pihole for DNS/adblock.

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neidu4@piefed.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
Right now I’m using a Fortigate 101E, but eons back I used a simple PC built as cheaply as possible, installed Linux, ip_forward = 1, and iptables.

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cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨53⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
I’m running pfSense on an old Intel Atom fanless mini PC with 6 ethernet ports. I use pfBlocker for ad blocking. I also installed a GPS module in it. That’s the clock source for the NTP server. I was planning on replacing it with something newer, but that’s not happening until memory prices come down.

I would not recommend using pfSense anymore. My next router will be running OPNsense. I will probably install Adguard Home on that for ad blocking.

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Shimitar@downonthestreet.eu ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I bought a firewall appliance based on an Intel CPU, with 4x 2.5gbps Ethernet ports, 8gb ram. Installed opnSense on it and been super happy even since!

A bit pricey the hardware, but it’s been totally rock solid for almost two years now.

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- EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  I’ve seen a lot of people on YouTube talking about this or that cast off networking device that they turned into a router. I do find the idea of repurposing especially old tech appealing. Or did you buy it brand new?
  
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- yaroto98@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I’m eyeing a similar one, but with 2x sfp+ ports too.
  
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grue@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
I just put OpenWRT on a (at this point quite old) TP-Link non-DIY home router. The only thing wrong with it is that it isn’t a rack-mountable rectangle, which offends my perfectionism.

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treadful@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Not sure how “DIY” you want to go. I’ve been liking OPNSense though. Running it on an air cooled Protectli box.

Handles a symmetric 2Gbps connection just fine.

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- myfavouritename@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  This is what I’m doing too. I’m super happy with the results and how many options are now open to me.
  
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- EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Originally I was thinking I’d find a used business mini pc and put some open source router OS on there, still haven’t picked which one. But I’ve gotten super into, like, being cautious about power consumption and some of the little boxes you can get on AliExpress seem like that might be a better option? I’m not sure yet. What’s a Protectli, if you don’t mind?
  
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nymnympseudonym@piefed.social ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
OpenWRT all the way.

Skynet firewall

PiHole

Stable IP addresses and a private interface for family phones/laptops/pcs

Guest network for nasty Roku TV/peleton

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- EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I never even thought about a guest network for different services. Why do you do that, if you don’t mind? Privacy?
  
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  - GreenCrunch@piefed.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    You could configure different settings, such as preventing the device from connecting to ad servers. You also prevent it from scanning your network to learn about all your devices, since all it would be limited to that isolated network.
    
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Egonallanon@feddit.uk ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I had a virtualized PFsense box for a while doing my inherent. Was actually pretty solid even when having to wrangle the quirks having a virtualized firewall/router caused.

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- SmoothLiquidation@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  I have something similar it’s been working great.
  
  I have been thinking of trying to set up a “router on a stick” as a live backup but once I started researching it, it got daunting.
  
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avidamoeba@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
OpenWrt on Raspberry Pi 4 with UE300 dongle for the WAN side. 7 years of trouble-free operation so far.

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- victorz@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  What’s the throughput on that bad boi?
  
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  - avidamoeba@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I’ve only tested up to 1Gb. It does 1Gb no probs, with SQM (QoS) which burns a lot of CPU.
    
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Decronym@lemmy.decronym.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters	More Letters
AP	WiFi Access Point
DNS	Domain Name Service/System
PCIe	Peripheral Component Interconnect Express
PiHole	Network-wide ad-blocker (DNS sinkhole)
PoE	Power over Ethernet
Unifi	Ubiquiti WiFi hardware brand

[Thread #130 for this comm, first seen 15th Oct 2026, 21:00] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

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Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I got a spiffy little fanless micro PC with five Ethernet ports, installed Ubuntu, and wrote my own iptables rules and installed pihole.

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- EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  Now THAT is diy
  
  Does it run cool enough?
  
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  - Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world ⁨40⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    Yeah, it’s barely doing anything except shifting packets and doing DNS. Load is around 0.08 on a four core processor.
    
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Reannlegge@lemmy.ca ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I have a Flint 2 with OpenWRT installed, it handles all my home networking. I have a handful of vLANs and I think the count is still 5 APs. I am currently considering adding a 6th for HA to TV vLAN, one that cannot access the WAN just HA. People have disagreements over OpenWRT and pfsense, or opensense not sure which is the “FOSS” version, but OpenWRT is not going to try and upsell you.

I am sure OpenWRT offers some ad blocking but I already had two finally tuned piholes. There are arguments between pihole and adguard home. I started with pihole I have tried adguard but went back to pihole.

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- EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app ⁨53⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  Can I ask why you didn’t like adguard as much? :o
  
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  - Reannlegge@lemmy.ca ⁨7⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
    That was years ago so I do not remember. Maybe it was that I was just used to pihole? If I tried now I think the answer would be the same, but it would be because I have a finally curated list and regex.
    
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otacon239@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
My setup consists of an x86 “network appliance”. They’re low-cost, low-power, sometime headless units that can run most any open-source software solution. Even with RAM as bad as it is, you can find these for less than $200 from multiple sources if you’re okay with 1Gbps. If you did need that, you’d have to build something custom likely, unless it’s a small-business class device.

If you’re just getting into the network software side of things, I recommend experimenting off-Internet for a while with a few different operating systems. Find which one has a user-interface you enjoy and can wrap your head around since in a personal homelab, they almost all meet the requirements. My personal choice for software ended up being OPNSense.

I run all of my other services that aren’t network related on separate hardware via a managed switch just to keep things isolated and the rest is up to you.

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Klox@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
OPNsense on used dell optiplex. Very easy but it can do whatever you want to grow into as you learn more.

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- EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  Is the power consumption too bad, if you know?
  
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- tofu@lemmy.nocturnal.garden ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  dell optiplex
  
  How many NICs can you cram in these? I added a second one to my Lenovo Tinys but some more are nice for a FW…
  
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  - Klox@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Just depends on the form factor, but I usually go with SFF. I went 10G last year and it’s been so great. Used low profile, dual port SFP+ module. One port has SFP+ to RJ45 to my modem. Other port is SFP+ passive DAC to a used Brocade ICX 2750.
    
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- PabloSexcrowbar@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  This is what I did before I went to all unifi gear.
  
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  - Klox@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I was Unifi gear and then went back to Opnsense :P. That shit is way too expensive to replace.
    
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deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
OpnSense running on an ex-lease HP i3-something SFF desktop. Added several cheap half-height GigEth PCIe cards for the LAN bridge.

It is way over spec for what OpnSense needs but it was cheap and extensible.

UPS power supply.

There’s a tangle of PoE injectors which makes me sad. PoE PCIe cards appear to be ludicrously expensive here for no apparent reason.

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- EmilieEasie@fedinsfw.app ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
  I’m gonna ask you the same question I’m asking everyone using office mini PCs, do you know what kind of power draw? I’m really into the idea of cheap, but I’m also getting super into green energy.
  
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  - zarathustrad@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨hour⁩ ago
    Different person. But I have proxmox on multiple mini PC (Lenovo and HP600). They max out at 65w but pull less most of the time. I suppose I should check the weekly average, but my power monitor is on the other side of the UPS and there are multiple mini PC, devices, switches, modem, wireless AP… All on the monitor. If I had to guess I’d say the router/pihole pulls <30w and the media rig with its HDDs pulls ~100 but only when it’s read/writing. The full stack idles <100 including AP/switches, way less then my gaming PC just on idle (>700 when the GPU is GPing).
    
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