First, a hardware question. I’m looking for a computer to use as a… router? Louis calls it a router but it’s a computer that is upstream of my whole network and has two ethernet ports. And suggestions on this? Ideal amount or RAM? Ideal processor/speed? I have fiber internet, 10 gbps up and 10 gbps down, so I’m willing to spend a little more on higher bandwidth components. I’m assuming I won’t need a GPU.

Anyways, has anyone had a chance to look at his guide? It’s accompanied by two youtube videos that are about 7 hours each.

I don’t expect to do everything in his guide. I’d like to be able to VPN into my home network and SSH into some of my projects, use Immich, check out Plex or similar, and set up a NAS. Maybe other stuff after that but those are my main interests.

Any advice/links for a beginner are more than welcome.

Edit: thanks for all the info, lots of good stuff here. OpenWRT seems to be the most frequently recommended thing here so I’m looking into that now. Unfortunately my current router/AP (Asus AX6600) is not supported. I was hoping to not have to replace it, it was kinda pricey, I got it when I upgraded to fiber since it can do 6.6gbps. I’m currently looking into devices I can put upstream of my current hardware but I might have to bite the bullet and replace it.

Edit 2: This is looking pretty good right now.

  • Tinkerer@lemmy.caEnglish
    8·
    6 days ago

    Start off small, get an old PC that has an i5or better that’s got vt-d support. start off with 8gb of RAM or more. Then throw proxmox on it and you are off to the races. It will save you a lot of money since you can run multiple virtual machines or lxc containers. This is how I started out, my proxmox host now has 26gb of RAM and its running very smoothly . i like opnsense as a router and firewall but its a little advanced but amazing, also get an access point and a switch and you can start building your network. You could also even run opnsense in a VM but that gets a little confusing but its an option.

    • Bakkoda@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      5 days ago

      I second this. Once i was confident enough to start virtualizing (I’m old so this was a while ago) I took a chance and it’s been so good. I use probably a 1/10th of what it has to offer but that just means there’s tons of head room for you.

      I would recommend a small form factor (i use dell optiplexes, some offer more options for sure though) and stuff it with a bunch of memory. For the cost i would max it out. A Dell 7060 micro i5-8500 with 64gb has allowed me to be able to not worry about resources at all.