Hi all,
I thought I would post on here to see if anyone in the community uses IPFire for their home router solution?
Basically, for those who don't know, IPFire is an open source Linux based firewall, run from a small low powered computer, which will allow you to create multiple networks in lieu of a normal router.
A while back, I decided that I had given my wifi password to so many people (friends/babysitters etc), that I had lost track of who might be able to access my network. Clearly I wouldn't give out my password to someone I didn't trust, but it always niggled me a bit. So, had a play with a Raspberry Pi 1, to see whether I could use it in combination with my ISPs router, to provide a guest wifi network, firewalled from the main home LAN. It worked really well, but the RPi is slow and only has a 10/100 NIC (and also the SD card didn't like power cuts), so I decided to take the plunge and move onto something a little more adventurous.
I bought a second hand Wyse Thin Client for £35 from ebay (Z90D7 with a 20Gb SD drive), and have installed IPFire. I have also bought a cheap (£8) USB 3.0 10/100/1000 NIC.
My setup:
- USB NIC -> directly to my ISP modem in PPPoE mode, which provides the internet connection to the house (Red Network).
- Onboard Wired NIC -> to a network switch connected to the private LAN (Green Network)
- Onboard WiFi NIC -> configured as the guest WiFi (Blue Network).
So far, so good. I have enhanced firewall protection from the internet, and firewalled internet access only to my guests via WiFi. While concurrently running parental control, VPN access, and a whole load more for the household.
It seems really stable, and anecdotally, my internet speeds see slightly increased (and the network seems far more stable. WiFi access points aren't dropping out like they used to and my Macs seem to play far better over the Network with my PCs!
Does anyone else use IPFire? (or any other similar software, like PFSense)
I thought I would post on here to see if anyone in the community uses IPFire for their home router solution?
Basically, for those who don't know, IPFire is an open source Linux based firewall, run from a small low powered computer, which will allow you to create multiple networks in lieu of a normal router.
A while back, I decided that I had given my wifi password to so many people (friends/babysitters etc), that I had lost track of who might be able to access my network. Clearly I wouldn't give out my password to someone I didn't trust, but it always niggled me a bit. So, had a play with a Raspberry Pi 1, to see whether I could use it in combination with my ISPs router, to provide a guest wifi network, firewalled from the main home LAN. It worked really well, but the RPi is slow and only has a 10/100 NIC (and also the SD card didn't like power cuts), so I decided to take the plunge and move onto something a little more adventurous.
I bought a second hand Wyse Thin Client for £35 from ebay (Z90D7 with a 20Gb SD drive), and have installed IPFire. I have also bought a cheap (£8) USB 3.0 10/100/1000 NIC.
My setup:
- USB NIC -> directly to my ISP modem in PPPoE mode, which provides the internet connection to the house (Red Network).
- Onboard Wired NIC -> to a network switch connected to the private LAN (Green Network)
- Onboard WiFi NIC -> configured as the guest WiFi (Blue Network).
So far, so good. I have enhanced firewall protection from the internet, and firewalled internet access only to my guests via WiFi. While concurrently running parental control, VPN access, and a whole load more for the household.
It seems really stable, and anecdotally, my internet speeds see slightly increased (and the network seems far more stable. WiFi access points aren't dropping out like they used to and my Macs seem to play far better over the Network with my PCs!
Does anyone else use IPFire? (or any other similar software, like PFSense)
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