Mini PC to replace fiber modem and wifi router. How to proceed?

Submitted ⁨⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day⁩ to ⁨selfhosted@lemmy.world⁩

My current internet setup is like this (which is common for most people).

fiber line from ISP <-> ISP fiber modem <-> Personal wifi router <-> switch

This is working fine with no issues. But I need to power two devices. I want to reduce this to a single device.

fiber line from ISP <-> Modem+Firewall PC <-> Switch <-> AP1,AP2...

From my initial research, what I need is an SFP module which can be attached to a PC which supports SFP. OPNsense should be able to handle most SFP modules.

What is the community’s take on this? Is this worth the effort? Can I find a mini-PC which supports SFP? Will it be cost effective?

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Comments

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FlexibleToast@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Those two devices are likely very low power arm devices. I wouldn’t be surprised if a mini pc consumes more power than those two devices. If power is your concern you should probably measure how much they’re actually pulling.

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- hendrik@palaver.p3x.de ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Maybe correct? Though my cable modem gobbles down some 15W… Without even doing the Wifi… So, I bet this isn’t a universal truth, as a Mini-PC will do less.
  
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  - FlexibleToast@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Wow, that’s a power hungry modem… But, look into the power usage of those sfp modules. They can be ~10w on their own.
    
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- Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I dunno, my newest cable modem chews up a boatload of power for no good reason - really pisses me off.
  
  It uses more power (50w) than my 2019 SFF desktop I run as a server, with an 8TB drive (20w).
  
  I know because they both sit on their own smart switches.
  
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  - MagnificentSteiner@lemmy.zip ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    50w… holy shit!
    
    My server with 1 SSD, 3 HDDs running multiple docker containers doesn’t usually pull more than 35-40w.
    
    My router tops out at 8w and my wireless access point at 5w IIRC.
    
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  - FlexibleToast@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I would definitely complain. That sounds defective.
    
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- xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  This is something I completely forgot to account for. I heard that some SFP modules (10G) can consume a lot of power. I think the devices are pretty low powered. I’ll have to get a smartmeter and rethink the setup. Thanks a lot!
  
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  - FlexibleToast@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Older 10G SFP+ models were definitely power hungry. I think they’ve gotten better since then, but I haven’t really looked into how much better.
    
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chocrates@piefed.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Just use the fiber modem, it’s gonna be a huge pain and fight with your ISP to use your own modem likely.

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- xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I checked this route but fiber modem are currently rare. There are only few WiFi 6/7 routers which accepts fiber. My ISP on the other hand is quite friendly. They initially provided me with a fiber modem, which sucked as it was quite old, so I told them to give me a simple modem as I have my own ethernet wifi router. They replaced it the next day.
  
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CallMeAl@piefed.zip ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

This is working fine with no issues.

It seems like a lot of time and effort with no upside except having one device in the place of two. Is there more you are hoping to accomplish with this proposed change?

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- xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  I eventually want to learn OPNsense, play with VLANs, per-device monitoring, adblocking right at the firewall itself. I will purchase a PC for the firewall for sure. So was thinking would it be better if adding an SFP to it would future proof it. But power is a concern.
  
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  - CallMeAl@piefed.zip ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    You can certainly do all that learning with or without directly connecting the fiber to your firewall pc. For a mini pc you will likely need to get a USB to SFP adapter. If you want to go that route I suggest searching for compatible hardware recommendations and get a USB to SFP that has worked well for others.
    
    Personally I would stick with the ISP modem. In any case, happy learning!
    
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Clusterfck@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
You cannot just buy any SFP module and have it work. Most ISPs deploy a “special” (at least compared to normal point to point fiber links) that lets them serve multiple customers out of one port in their office. This is called a Passive Optical Network and requires specialized modules on both ends. There are ways to make a specific SFP work as an ONT and by cloning certain identifiers from the ONT to make the ISP think their box is still there.

This is a lot of effort and from my research, could stop working randomly in some cases.

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truthfultemporarily@feddit.org ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
This may not be so easy, what protocol does the ISP use over fibre?

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- xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  
  what protocol does the ISP use over fibre?
  
  Any way to figure this out? The modem they have provided looks like a layer 2 bridge, i.e., it just converts optical frames to ethernet frames. The login/auth process happens on my router.
  
  Honestly the network card that you will probably need might already pull more than the modem
  
  I have a feeling that this is true. I’ll check.
  
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tal@lemmy.today ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

Is this worth the effort?

In terms of electricity cost?

I wouldn’t do it myself.

If you want to know whether it’s going to save money, you want to see how much power it uses — you can use a wattmeter, or look up the maximum amount on the device ratings to get an upper end. Look up how much you’re paying per kWh in electricity. Price the hardware. Put a price on your labor. Then you can get an estimate.

My guess, without having any of those numbers, is that it probably isn’t.

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- xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Thanks for the suggestion, I need to get a wattmeter. The ISP modem looks low-powered but it can crank out 500 Mbps.
  
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  - themachine@lemmy.world ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    500Mbps isn’t a measurement of electrical consumption
    
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rossome@lemmy.ml ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Follow the guides at pon.wiki for replacing your ISP modem with a sfp module running custom firmware. The sfp module will require some sort of active cooling, I bought a 3D printed bracket and fan from their discord server. You can also get a sfp to Ethernet media converter if your firewall does not have sfp: www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0FCFWGWHT

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- xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Excellent resources! Both the wiki and the miniPC! Thanks.
  
  I was once thinking of virtualizing OPNsense but heard it’s a lot of pain during the setup and throughput can suffer. But I shall keep this is mind.
  
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- non_burglar@lemmy.world ⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Most fiber services register the sfp/sfp+ module. it is much cheaper, easier and usually not against the terms of service to just use the isp-provided sfp in your own routing device instead of messing with OLT settingw and custom firmware on a $160 WAS.
  
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eleitl@lemmy.zip ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Protectli sells opnsense firewalls with SFP+ support. Make sure these can handle gigabit data rates.

You can also terminate SFP with a switch and route that at L2 (VLAN) level to your firewall’s NIC.

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