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by brunoqc 4617 days ago
What is the best hardware for a home router? Soekris was very popular in the past but I'm wondering that maybe there's cool hardware out there.

I also wonder if carpd is usable with a DHCP connection.

4 comments

I'm not sure you'd consider it "cool", but I've been using one of these for the past 5 months with OpenBSD 5.3 with no issues:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16856205...

Your use is mainly as a router?
Yes. I basically just use it for router/firewall with pf.
Thanks. will try one to replace some old hardware.
Also, there are some nice fanless Mini-ITX boards out there with dual gigabit, which is all you need (plus a case for a board and a switch, of course).

M350 enclosure is popular and cheap.

It goes without saying such box will smoke anything you can buy of-the-shelf. Hell, even the anemic ALIX Geode gave a nice boost to my home network over the crappy Linksys I had previously (things are now snappy and 100% stable).

Soekris now has new models with Intel Atoms, top quality stuff as always (old ones are rock solid too, if a bit dated). I went with ALIX instead as I had a local distributor so it was quite a bit cheaper. Plenty fast for now, too.
While may not be the best, but with no moving parts Alix boards are quite nice. http://www.pcengines.ch/alix2d3.htm