Which Router?

[mcraftax]

Hi Guys,

So my last few posts on routers have been a bit of a fail so I am going to do it differently.

 

I'm looking for a good router for a home network, I do not want it to have a AP, it would be ideal to be rackmounted, it needs to have firewall functionality (without yearly subs), needs a captive portal (+ RADIUS server) and support for OpenVPN. Around £200 or bellow.

 

Any suggestions thanks.

Thanks,

Max

[Oshino Shinobu]

Have you considered building one? If you can find a preowned rackmounted case, build what you can inside that, then install pfsense and set it up how you want. 

AFAIK, there's not too many rackmountable routers that are outside of the business class hardware, which tend to be expensive. 

[TomasV]

Hi,

I've got router from asus. It's rt-51acu i think. Look they have good routers take some with 802.11ac for better perfomance.

[Trikein]

Not sure about the radius server, but check out the Edge ER-8.  Specs are here Open VPN instructions here. Think Newegg Business ships to UK. Comes with mediocre GUI but CLI code is decent and 3rd party improves the GUI. I am a bit of a Edge fan boy though, so compare to other options. 

[Razor512]

For your requirements, it is looking more like you will have to build one. Normally when you get into the non consumer space, the price markup becomes immense. Here is an example. http://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/3509/juniper-networks-acx2000-universal-access-router-teardown

 

Usually when on a budget, you can buy used servers for cheap on ebay. (they lose their value fast since outside of a business setting, they are not very desirable; very loud for home use, and not as power efficient as just building a low end core i3 based system for a server that is good enough for home use, but they sure are cheap and great if you hate sleeping or peace and quiet e.g., http://www.ebay.com/itm/Supermicro-1U-X7DVL-3-2x-Intel-Xeon-E5410-2-33GHz-Quad-Core-12GB-DVD-NO-HDD-/201421458873?hash=item2ee5a78db9:g:9h8AAOSwhcJWHtH6

 

just an example but you will find a ton of old server equipment in the sub $100 range, which while outdated, will still be able to function as a basic router.

 

If possible get an extra Ethernet adapter for an old PC that you have laying around, and then install either untangle or pfsense on it and turn it into a router.

[mcraftax]

3 hours ago, Oshino Shinobu said:

Have you considered building one? If you can find a preowned rackmounted case, build what you can inside that, then install pfsense and set it up how you want. 

AFAIK, there's not too many rackmountable routers that are outside of the business class hardware, which tend to be expensive. 

 

 

[mcraftax]

3 hours ago, Trikein said:

Not sure about the radius server, but check out the Edge ER-8.  Specs are here Open VPN instructions here. Think Newegg Business ships to UK. Comes with mediocre GUI but CLI code is decent and 3rd party improves the GUI. I am a bit of a Edge fan boy though, so compare to other options. 

I have looked into this and I think out of the Edge Router range https://www.ubnt.com/edgemax/edgerouter-poe/ is the best for what I need.

It was wondering if this is true for it as I cannot find it:

'Passive' PoE is what the router has, on Wikipedia it says that passive poe is limited to 100Mbps because of how it works, is this true and will this happen on a complete 1Gbps connection for the router port to the host if all is 1Gbps kit?

[MariusJS]

On 09/02/2016 at 10:12 PM, mcraftax said:

I have looked into this and I think out of the Edge Router range https://www.ubnt.com/edgemax/edgerouter-poe/ is the best for what I need.

It was wondering if this is true for it as I cannot find it:

'Passive' PoE is what the router has, on Wikipedia it says that passive poe is limited to 100Mbps because of how it works, is this true and will this happen on a complete 1Gbps connection for the router port to the host if all is 1Gbps kit?

All of the ports are gigabit, the PoE function is meant to work with their AC AP's aswell, which require a gigabit connection + PoE to funtion as intended.

 

This is with their thoughswitch:

 

 

As you can see PoE is enabled and it has a gigabit connection.

[Blake]

On 2/9/2016 at 2:39 AM, mcraftax said:

Hi Guys,

So my last few posts on routers have been a bit of a fail so I am going to do it differently.

 

I'm looking for a good router for a home network, I do not want it to have a AP, it would be ideal to be rackmounted, it needs to have firewall functionality (without yearly subs), needs a captive portal (+ RADIUS server) and support for OpenVPN. Around £200 or bellow.

 

Any suggestions thanks.

Thanks,

Max

all the meraki stuff does what you want out of the box. it's expensive + Yearly licensing, so maybe not. The ubnt stuff supposedly also does the captive portal stuff, but I have't used that part of it, so can't really tell you.

 

on the firewall side, it sounds like your after content filtering? if so, good luck finding a device that doesn't have a subscription method. If your just after a stateful firewall, every Cisco/HP/ubnt device has that out of the box, you will need to manually configure it however. On the RADIUS server side, i'd get a separate box, I know the NTP server on windows is fairly easy to configure, you'll just need to get a certificate (either by deploying your own CA or buying one). I know most of the Enterprise stuff also supports OpenVPN. 

 

Not sure if you even have a chance of finding something like this on the consumer device, and unless your going to get a core switch you'll be hard pressed finding everything in one box.

[Razor512]

If possible, avoid cloud reliant networking equipment, no company is really above crippling old equipment to push sales for newer items.

 

Actions such as this show the potential harm they can cause to consumer equipment https://www.reddit.com/r/meraki/comments/41laj8/did_the_z1s_just_get_a_bandwidth_lock_pushed_down/

 

While the community fallout caused them to rethink their decision, it does show that they can cripple old hardware.

 

Their agreements also include that products which are end of life may lose access to the cloud services.

\Furthermore, when you are charged reoccurring fees on already expensive equipment, you are in the worst possible consumer position, as you are in forced into the sunken cost fallacy. Service fees increase buy you may feel more inclined to pay the higher fee instead of turning the physical equipment into paperweights.

[beavo451]

Mikrotik has rackmount routers that should be able to do everything you want.

 

You could also do a PFSense build for your your budget.