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Comment by mistermann | Hacker News Reader

Can anyone recommend a "2018 good choice" for a consumer router that can run custom firmware (including dnsmasq), or a trustworthy recommendation website? Wirecutter for example doesn't note third party firmware: https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-wi-fi-router/

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Not really an off-the shelf consumer router, but since you want to install custom firmware anyways, you might want to consider the PC-Engines APU2 board [1]. You can either install any "normal" desktop x86_64 Linux distribution or a specialized router OS such as OpenWrt [2]. The AMD APU on the board supports hardware virtualisation, so you're able to run several VMs via KVM to isolate the services the router is providing.

Of course this board doesn't come with the features of a fully-fledged consumer router, such as built-in DSL/DOCSIS modem, DECT, WiFi, etc, so your mileage may vary. It comes with 3 independent Ethernet ports and 3 mPCIe slots though.

[1] http://pcengines.ch/apu2.htm [2] https://openwrt.org/toh/pcengines/apu2

I second this. I've been running PC engines stuff for a few years and it's great. I currently have an APU and it handles my gigabit fiber no problem. I use a separate off-the-shelf wireless router in bridge mode which let's me upgrade that independent of the PC engines (wireless hardware tech moves faster than router hardware tech).

I run openwrt on it and use the "adblock" package which works like pi-hole (minus the nice web stats). Having it be a plain x86 CPU is nice—For example, I compiled Telegraf on my local Linux machine (since openwrt doesn't have a package for it) and was able to just drop it on with minimal problems.

Unfortunately it does not come with 3 mPCIe slots, the one furthest to the left is an mSATA port.

I’ve been running the mid to high end Asus routers for years now and am very happy with them. Running wrt-Merlin firmware and AB-Solution via entware is everything I need and doesn’t complicate things with additional devices like pi-hole.

Yes, this is my preference as well. You can also run a vpn with this setup (as you can with other custom firmwares) so you can take advantage of this adblocking from outside your home.

The TP-Link Archer C7 AC1750. https://openwrt.org/toh/tp-link/archer-c5-c7-wdr7500

I was looking for an openwrt-compatible router a few weeks ago, this is 2018's consensual cheap & able & easy-to-install router. It's easily the most frequently recommended home router for openwrt these days. And yes, openwrt's Adblock package is awesome.

And to come back to your original question, to do your own research, I recommend you search/ask on https://www.reddit.com/r/openwrt/ and https://forum.openwrt.org/ , it's a question that pops up frequently.

Netgear R7800 and any other router with the same Qualcomm chipset work great with OpenWRT.

Take care that the router has a boot mode which allows you to overwrite the firmware via TFTP. That comes in handy in case of trouble with a particular firmware version (e.g., router stuck in a boot loop).

https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_864

edit: link to OpenWRT with a list of supported hardware that is relevant to the parent's question

I buy my routers from flashrouters.com. A little overpriced, but I trust them and their testing. I have the Asus N16rt (I think) running shibby tomato and it's great.

Despite this, I run pi-hole on an RPi that I have done so much as a reboot on in two years.

It may be more full-featured than you are looking for, but have a look at the Turris Omnia. It is extremely customisable and you can add an internal SSD to run LXC containers on (including one running Pi-hole, which is what I do).

Not cheap, and sometimes unforgiving if you don't know exactly what you are doing, but worth every penny in my opinion.

https://omnia.turris.cz/en/

Have you had any issues with the auto updater? I got rid of my Omnia after an auto-update broke DNS while I was away from home.

Ironically, went to Unifi after reading Troy's blogs about it - now regretting it immensely as the hardware is nowhere near as powerful as the Omnia.

This happened to me too, and what I learned is that the Omnia uses the Knot DNS resolver, which re-enables itself after updates and this breaks everything if you have made certain customisations.

The fix is to disable this with "echo 'Uninstall("knot-resolver", { priority = 60 })' >> /etc/updater/conf.d/user.lua" over SSH so it stays disabled. You can do this for any service you modified or disabled, and the documentation barely mentions this (it's a real showstopper bug until you diagnose it - no connectivity whatsoever).

I’ve been also searching for recommendations, particularly on a custom firmware router that allows me to host a VPN server.

It’ll be more involved for you to set up, but pfSense is what I use. I basically forget it’s there until I want to change something (add a new VPN user, monitor bandwidth usage). I’ve set up an IPSec VPN that works well with my Apple devices, especially with a configuration profile that enables on demand VPN (connect via VPN when certain conditions are met, like not on my home WiFi). For hardware I use a cheapish “industrial” computer from AliExpress. Probably not the best thing security-wise (no firmware updates in the past few years, it feels like it’s just shipped directly from a random factory in China), but it’s been great so far.

How do you instruct an iPhone or iPad to use VPN when you are not connected to your home Wi-Fi? I used their former Workflow automation app (now dubbed Shortcuts in iOS12) and it did allow reacting to such an event (going out of range of 1 or more wi-fi networks) but did not realize one of the possible actions was to be able to enable VPN.

Was that what you used? Or was it something else?

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