Comment by bjackman
7 hours ago
Yeah I was considering this actually, but then I realised that I really want a working LAN 100.0% of the time, so I'd only go tinker mode if I had a backup. So I was gonna be buying a router regardless.
Now I have a Ubiquiti one, it's antithetical to my DIY instincts but I think I'm OK with my router being one of the proprietary appliances in my life.
Plus now the wired section of my LAN is really fast.
Honestly, you got me on this one. I probably break my OpenWRT setup every three months or so on average.
I recently decided to stop running anything too fancy on it and keep the router itself simple: just secure, robust networking. All the tinkering has moved to chained network VMs in QubesOS instead.
It was definitely nice having different LAN ports behave differently, multiple VPNs, policy-based routing, filtering, monitoring, and all that. But yeah, every extra thing I add is another chance to break the whole network.
All that said, I could never imagine going back from OpenWRT. The answer to basically any networking idea is always “yes.” There are pretty much no limits. I especially like that it doesn’t try to hide networking terminology or abstract everything away. You really get to understand what you’re actually doing and can choose the exact configuration you need, down to the smallest detail. Everything is exposed.