Network setup with OpenWRT VM as router

[Starry_air]

Hi guys!
I’m setting up a simple home network at my mother’s house. Since she is most comfortable consuming media content or working on her PC lying down in front of her TV, as she is disabled and sitting for long periods of time is too tiring for her, I’m planning to mount her laptop behind the TV and use it as her PC, Plex server, HomeAssistant server and, if possible, router. Since she’s only using web-based apps, it doesn’t matter what the host system will be. I was thinking Debian with a graphical environment that scales well (tips?). Unfortunately only LTE internet is available in her area, which I was able to get to work decently with an external aerial. However, it is not the most stable and consistently performing connection, obviously, and there is quite a lot of different kinds of traffic. She’s watching a lot of media, browsing the web and video calling, and she is renting the ground floor of her house to tenants, who will be doing who knows what, but probably a bit of everything, including gaming. So I wanted to make use of Open-WRT’s more advanced QOS capabilities to make the experience a tad better for everyone. Basically the idea I had is more or less this:

• internet access is provided through a Huawei modem in bridged mode connected to a VLAN capable switch,
• there is a wireless access point connected to the switch,
• a VM with OpenWRT on her laptop is the router,
• the switch handles wired connections.

I’m wondering what the best way to accomplish this would be and if it’s even feasible. Should I use a USB ethernet adapter for the VM and have the host plugged in through the laptop’s built-in nic to the switch? Have you seen an article, guide, how-to or whatever about a similar setup? Do you have any suggestions / altogether better ideas? Thanks a lot!

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id really suggest against a router on here, I have done this and its a great way to have the whole network go down a lot more than it needs do. 

 

Id just get a cheap router here, maybe a edge router to do this stuff. Or really just use the modem for everything. Is QOS a big issue here.

 

 

[Falcon1986]

31 minutes ago, Starry_air said:

Unfortunately only LTE internet is available in her area, which I was able to get to work decently with an external aerial. However, it is not the most stable and consistently performing connection, obviously, and there is quite a lot of different kinds of traffic.

I'm not sure you'll solve this problem with such a setup that you're proposing.

 

32 minutes ago, Starry_air said:

she is renting the ground floor of her house to tenants, who will be doing who knows what, but probably a bit of everything, including gaming.

So the tenants will be sharing this internet connection? If so, it should be explained to them that this is an LTE-based internet connection. You can't do much about the latency when they start complaining about "high ping" in their online FPS games.

 

35 minutes ago, Starry_air said:

a VM with OpenWRT on her laptop is the router,

Why though? So this PC will never shut off? You're creating a single point of failure by using the laptop in this all-in-one fashion.

 

If you're looking for something low-powered, check out DFRobot.

 

In my experience, when it comes to family, get the simplest/reliable thing that just works. I've gone out of my way to set up fancy stuff with all the best of intentions, only for things to break when I'm not around and no one is available to fix it.

[Starry_air]

Thanks for the comments! As for the laptop being a single point of failure - yes, it is true, though I've been running linux machines on similar hardware for months without restarts and there were no real issues. And it will be on 24/7 anyway, seeing as it will serve as a Plex/HA server. 

 

As for the ping, it is reasonably decent, comparable to ADSL, and quite stable after I installed a good antenna on the roof. However, I would like to do something about QoS and bufferbloat, and the vast majority of solutions in routers that don't cost an arm and a leg are useless or make things worse. And the reasonably capable ASUS wireless router I bought for her some time ago doesn't really handle things well, especially on the WiFi side. I bought it thinking I could install OpenWRT on it, but I didn't notice that particular hardware revision was not supported. 

 

I may consider buying a dedicated machine to handle the routing, for example a PI, like you suggested, if there are many issues. For now I guess I want to find out if the VM solution is feasible and if there are any decent guides on how to set it up. 

[Falcon1986]

2 hours ago, Starry_air said:

And the reasonably capable ASUS wireless router I bought for her some time ago doesn't really handle things well, especially on the WiFi side. I bought it thinking I could install OpenWRT on it, but I didn't notice that particular hardware revision was not supported.

See AsusWRT Merlin.

 

2 hours ago, Starry_air said:

For now I guess I want to find out if the VM solution is feasible and if there are any decent guides on how to set it up. 

Have you checked out the VMware documentation on the OpenWRT website? What about Docker?blockquote widget