After a hardware upgrade I ended up with a spare mini pc. Noticed these two icons and thought I might be able to use it as a WiFi access point with VLANs using OPNsense.
Is that possible? If so, what do I even need to buy to plug into there?
I don’t need it to do any fancy dhcp, dns or firewall stuff, I just need a WiFi access point with support for VLANs.
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You’d probably be a lot better off buying a decent access point (unifi, mikrotik, Aruba instanton).
Are any of those open source? I was hoping to go the open source route
Not really. If that’s a hard requirement, check out what is supported by openwrt or freshtomato.
There was a similar question a few days ago with some points about wifi adapters vs access points brought up.
Nyes?
GL-iNet devices run DD-WRT, with an added (probably not open source) web interface. However, if you ssh into any of their routers, it’s BusyBox and DD-WRT. And if you click go into the admin web page and click System->Advanced you end up with a link that takes you to luci, the raw DD-WRT web UI for the device. The company’s UI is just a simpler, more pretty UI on top of DD-WRT.
@sxan @elyviere In particular, there are two gl.inet models that you can install openwrt on: https://forum.openwrt.org/t/best-newcomer-routers-2024/189050/2
The other models run modified openwrt but don’t necessarily allow you to install a stock openwrt release.
I’ve been wondering this exact question!
Thank you!
These are probably just rubber nubs where you could install wifi antennas. You would still need to buy the antennas and a pcie m2 wifi addon card.
Not sure if this is what you’re are after, but https://github.com/lakinduakash/linux-wifi-hotspot allows, among other things, to share the Ethernet-connected PC internet (with VPN if needed) as a WLAN for TVs, Phones, etc.
Doesn’t seem to be what I’m after but thanks for sharing
Before you start with this project, consider the power use of a full X86 system even at idle and compare that to a standard router.
If you are looking to run this as an access point permanently, the cost of power may add up.
I am not saying that you shouldn’t do it, but take it into account before deciding.
The architecture doesn’t determine the power draw so much as the system design. I’ve got a Chromebox running an i3 and sipping 4.5w at idle.
Install fresh tomato to this and you’ll get a much better AP with very good firewall and QOS and traffic inspection. Also good SNMP for monitoring
Freshtomato is very out of date. I would highly recommend against it.
What would you suggest instead?
OpenWRT
