Networking

Most people suffice with just what their ISP ship for connectivity. In the UK, for the most part, some of the equipment isn't exactly bad, but isn't exactly great, either. They usually lack features that allow a job to get done. However, in today's smart home, it is a good idea to start breaking up your network as to put different types of devices on their own network segments. This is more for a security stand point than anything.

Open Source solutions

Whilst there are a collection of awesome proprietary devices; Ubiquiti, Mikrotik, Cisco etc. you may not be at position to pay these costs. Panic not! That £50 TP-Link router you saw, could likely be repurposed with an Open Source firmware. An old x86_64 PC or thin client with at least 4GB storage and 1GB RAM and 2 network cards can become a powerful firewall! I kid you not! I've been doing things like this since I were a kid - but back 20 or so years ago, it wasn't as simple as it istoday!

OpenWRT

OpenWRT is a powerful, open source Linux firmware that is compatible with a very large number of routers that you can buy or may already have. In short, if what you have is not an ADSL router, it is probable that OpenWRT supports it. Even if not, cheap routers you can buy that are compatible can be repurposed with this firmware and allow you do gain far more control over your networking needs.

In a nutshell, it is a Linux distribution intended for embedded devices. It has a very large package management repository and because you have full access to the shell, you can do anything with it you pretty much could any Linux distribution.

WiFi VAPs & optimisation

Port based & Tagged VLANs

Isolation and segregation

Traffic shaping

Multicast traffic

Firewalling

DNS over TLS / HTTPS

pfSense Community Edition

pfSense - Extremely powerful, OSS CPE replacement powered by FreeBSD! Repurpose an old PC to become a very powerful firewall!

Traffic shaping

Isolation and segregation

Routing and redirection

Multicast traffic

Firewalling

Protect personal information leaks (Snort/Suricata)

Protect family from unsavoury content (Squid/Squidguard)

Protect network from hostile origins on the internet (pfBlockerNG)

DNS over TLS / HTTPS

More soon!

Keep posted!

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