Follow-up: OpenBSD routers on AliExpress mini PCs
I got lots of replies to the last post showing the little OpenBSD internet gateway setup (super interesting; thanks!). Here’s more info and pictures:
https://www.srcbeat.com/2024/02/aliexpress-openbsd-router/
Something I’ve been meaning to share for years now.
Is this a qotom? When I bought mine the description on Amazon said it could be turned on via power restore from bios but I have 0 power settings in bios. No wake on lan, nothing.
I’ve searched for how to update the bios (or if this would even help) but it’s hard to find clear information.
It might be a jumper on the board. Mine (Q770G4) boots on power, if I can organise some downtime with the family I’ll take a look at it (set it up ages ago so can’t remember).
Edit: CAB approval was easier than I expected! Mine is in the BIOS, under Chipset > PCH-IO Configuration, set State After G3 to Power On.
Yeah I also tried moving the jumper for the power pins on the mobo but all that accomplished was a long press, which caused it to turn on and then off again.
I’ll scroll through the bios again but I’m pretty sure I looked at every menu and submenu. 🤷♂️
@1couchpotato Nope, this one is https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005003378019857.html
“EVALUATION COPY BIOS” was the best bit
This is really cool. I’ve been interested in running something like this. Does it make sense to have this as a dedicated firewall in front of my Unifi lan?
That’s how I’ve got mine set up, with OPNsense.
I’ve been using it a few years and I only know about half the stuff that pfSense/OPNsense can do. So I would advise newbies to just make small changes at a time because there’s a whole lot of stuff you can change. It’s worth learning, though. I wouldn’t use anything else for my main firewall/router nowadays.
Do you know what it’s idle power usage is? I’m guessing below 10W?
@czardestructo For the CPU Intel says 7.5W: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/81071/intel-celeron-processor-n2830-1m-cache-up-to-2-41-ghz.html
So all up I’m guessing under 10W. I don’t know how much other components affect the power usage, though. And I’m about 200km away from where it is installed! Hoping someone more expert in hardware could chime in here :)
Well written article. Could you point to the instructions you followed to set up OpenBSD as your router + Firewall?
For starting out, Building a Router from the OpenBSD FAQ is helpful: https://www.openbsd.org/faq/pf/example1.html
Thanks, I’ve read the guide. Would like to know what you’ve added on top
I’m sorry if I seem obtuse but isn’t it easier to just set up OPNsense, which is a fully configured router/firewall on top of BSD?
It is easier, but it can be considered as feature-bloat if you don’t really need the breadth of capabilities that it offers. Aside from that, OpenBSD has made specific choices to make it more secure than FreeBSD by default, though the configuration will depend upon the user.
It’s also more fun to DIY it and you no longer need to rely on a specialist version of BSD. You are closer to the source, so to speak.
Some reasons might just be philosophical, others can be technical if you have specific configuration that you’d want to achieve.
Really cool! I never touched *BSD, I have a mini PC/NAS home that ended with a minimal Arch install. This is something I can do at some point.
And what about Wireless networks?
Normally you use a separate AP to do that. BSDs don’t normally have good support for WiFi cards. Consumer WiFi cards aren’t really meant for use as APs anyway.
What would be the difference of running this as opposed to pf/opnsense? I know they use FreeBSD but I am not that versed in BSD based networking
pf/opnsense essentially provide web interfaces to the underlying
FreeBSD OS tooling. In this case I’m running plain OpenBSD. That means
configuring the system is mainly done by reading and writing text
files and doing stuff at the command line. There’s a whole bunch of
reasons why some people prefer one way or the other or even mix things
up a bit. My recommendation is, if you’re interested, have a go
administering a system without a web interface and see how you feel!
@Edgarallenpwn @selfhostedI personally would stick to *sense. I personally used OPNSense there’s a huge community backing, well documented, and actively maintained. I like to use the CLI, but using the Web GUI was a breeze and I mainly wanted to set it and forget it.
Same, hopped from PF to opn last year and really haven’t had to do too much besides updates. For somethings E
Been thinking about buying a similar setup, and you just pushed me into buying a “Chinabox”
Let’s see how this goes, if It explodes you owe me a beer, and a pair of hands, and another chinabox (I’m not a quitter)
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I’ve seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters More Letters AP WiFi Access Point NAS Network-Attached Storage Unifi Ubiquiti WiFi hardware brand
[Thread #572 for this sub, first seen 4th Mar 2024, 20:25] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
