Hi,
I've been reading hundreds of posts on this superb forum the last days to define a new home-network with vlans. There is so much knowledge in here!
I'm an embedded developer working from home on my Ubuntu laptop having my own lab-setup with network devices talking to each other on VLANs.
I realized I want my devices apart from the rest of the home network and I'm giving away my old Asus rt-a66u so it is time to design something new.
Trying to get my head around how to configure it and which hardware is needed.
I've moved from my first thought of having one device doing it all into a setup with a managed switch Zyxel (GS1900-10HP) which I already have on which I'll install OpenWRT. It will be attached to my internet (100 Mbps) as well as to an Rpi4b, already have that one too, which will act as an router-on-stick.
Then I need to solve the Wifi. I'm thinking of bying an AP like the Cudy AP3000 powered by PoE from the switch, https://www.cudy.com/products/ap3000-1-0?variant=45447635763444
It doesn't seem to support OpenWRT but I have read that it is possible and even better to stick with vendors firmware for Wifi since the open-source drivers for Wifi is behind and if configuring the AP as a dumb bridge there is no need for OpenWRT to do anything on it.
https://arstechnica.com/civis/threads/openwrt-still-king-suggestions-for-wireless-ap-router-to-manage-with-infra-as-code.1498951/post-42599714
My question is can the OpenWRT managed switch connected to the AP set the VLAN-ids (VIDs) based on the SSIDs so the Rpi4 can route the guests to internet only and the others to the main LAN+internet (not giving access to the houses devices)?
Another question is if I can attach some storage to the Rpi4 and in OpenWRT configure it to be a NAS as well to get rid of some of our iCloud subscriptions?
All computers in the Lab should have access to internet and my Ubuntu-laptop should have access to the Main VLAN even though wired to the Lab-switch, is that possible to configure or do I need to use Wifi to achieve that?
Any thoughts are highly appreciated.
Cudy AP3000 install instructions here https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/pull/17225
(you need to flash a transition/transformation firmware first from Cudy before flashing OpenWrt firmware)
For specific questions about Cudy AP3000 check this Support for Cudy AP3000 (indoor)
ps1: I compared Stock vs OpenWrt firmware for my access point EAP615 (mature drivers) but was not able to observe a noticeable difference EAP615-Wall; OpenWrt or Stock? - #11 by ed8 - can't tell though if same applies for Cudy AP 3000 - someone does need to test this...
ps2: one advantage of running OpenWrt on access points are the many Monitoring options (thermal, cpu/memory load, traffic etc) via luci-app-statistics and export ability into Prometheus for visualization in Grafana
That was great information, thanks!