Looking for Router Suggestions

[Mark Phillips]

James,

It sounds like a fun project! I am very tempted.......

However, I found this one -
https://www.flashrouters.com/netgear-wnr3500l-ddwrt-router.php for $80. It
has wireless, but I can just turn it off. A 480 MHz processor, and dd-wrt
installed and tested with openvpn. I haven't priced out your parts list,
but I would be surprised if it comes to less than $80. Also, I think the
netgear router will consume less power and space in my crowded cable
"closet" (aka the top shelf in my cupboard).

Answers to your questions -
I need a total of 20 gigabit LAN ports for my network. Currently, I have
two 8 port gigabit switches, and 4 10/100 ports on my current BEFSX41
router. I want to upgrade the router for open vpn, and gigabit speeds. So
the router is also a switch.

What is the advantage of running the whole thing virtualized?

But still, the fun of building this little project may outweigh the high
costs ($ and amps).....

Mark

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 11:10 PM, James Dugger <james.dugger at gmail.com>wrote:

> MSI Micro ATX board with Athlon II processor w/ 4 PCI slots (or 2 PCI and
> 2 PCIE)
> 2 GB RAM
> 4 gigabit NIC cards
> IDE or SATA to Compact Flash  Adaptor
> Compact flash 2GB memory - install Linux or Router based distro on CF card
> or USB memory stick
> External power 120v to 12v transformer w/ mono power converter
> Small micro case
> Set BIOS to boot CF Card or USB Memory stick
> Ubuntu 10.04 or 12.04 LTS server minimum install
>  - Install Openssh
>  - Firewall
>  - OpenVPN
>  - iptables
>
> Basically you are building an edge router/vpnserver.  There are a lot of
> instructions to build a high end router/openvpn system using a minimum box
> configuration.  The mobo  chip and RAM maybe overkill but smaller ATOM
> based boards probably won't have 4 PCI slots.  you should be able to pick
> up these for very reasonable cost compared to a higher end router.  Do you
> need all 4 - 1 gigabit connections to the router or can the connections to
> the VPN be shared off of one or two NICs?  OpenVPN needs a minimum of 2
> NIC's  (Unless you have set up virtual network adaptors and bridged them
> together).  Are you dedicating each user to a NIC for speed?  If not you
> could allocate the 4 users to a NIC and connect the router/vpnserver to a 4
> port gigabit switch.
>
> I'm sure there are a number of the ways to do this and there even might be
> fairly high end router for a good deal but most will also have built in
> wireless as well.  to find a dedicated wired only higher end router you may
> pay as much as the system I just outlined and it would be no where near the
> capabilities of the above system unless it was a lot more expensive.
>
> I'm sure that there are others here with a lot more experience with
> consumer and enterprise level equipment then myself but I have had success
> with the above. Also keep in mind that the Athlon II is 64bit with SVM
> built in for virtualization.  With additional memory you could run the
> whole thing virtualized using KVM or VMware.
>
> Good Luck!
>
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 7:53 PM, Mark Phillips <mark at phillipsmarketing.biz>wrote:
>
>> I am looking for a router with the following characteristics:
>> * No wifi
>> * 4 gigabit LAN ports
>> * 1 WAN port to connect to my Cox Cable Modem
>> * 400 MHZ+ processor so I can run OpenVPN SSL for a max of 4  remote
>> users to access the LAN at the same time.
>>
>> The last point comes from reading various forums about running openvpn on
>> the router, and they all say get the fastest possible cpu. I probably have
>> to run dd-wrt on the router to get openvpn running on the router, but I am
>> open to other options (most of the open source router packages support
>> openvpn, so anyone will do).
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Mark
>>
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>
>
> --
> James
>
>
>
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