Any recommendations for a small footprint wired only router, similar to the NanoPis? Or for NanoPis, not sure which one to get, though they are hard to find, slow shipping and not that cheap.
Switch that it will connect to is all 1Gbps and ISP < 1Gbps. I don’t think I need 2.5G ports any time soon, but also not a problem to have them.
Powerful enough to run some services on it such as Wireguard, AdGuard Home.
Architecture shouldn’t matter, just well supported and reliable. It must be able to operate in somewhat elevated temperatures, i.e. hot garage in the summer. Metal case perhaps.
It (+managed switch) would replace an EdgeRouter ER-12 which unfortunately doesn’t fully work with OpenWrt.
I'm happy with my tp-link er605_v2. Easy to install OpenWRT and has easy to solder serial header in case it's really messed up. (plus cheap and readily available)
NanoPi R3S with 2GB of RAM is a good option for your requirements. While it has less memory than the R5C, it is cheaper and can run WireGuard and AdGuard Home without issues. In fact, I have an R3S in a family cottage that replaced a more powerful R4S, as the R4S was hanging on reboot with OpenWrt.
You can easily find it on AliExpress for around US$ 55 with metal case, shipped worldwide.
The R3S is a great option. I run an R5C as my gateway. I don’t need the 2.5 Gbps ports on the R5C. Had the R3S been available when I purchased my R5C, I would have chosen the R3S myself.
If it is important to you to shape every bit of Gbps line rate with CAKE, the R3S (same CPU as the R5C and R5S) may come up just a little short, but not by much. I think CAKE limited to “only” the high 800’s Mbps - if you even intend to shape with CAKE - is worth saving ~$20 over the R4S and potentially not having to fiddle around with CPU affinity settings to keep CAKE running on the R4S performance cores. @dsouza may be able to provide more direct insights on this with his R3S.
If you get a rockchip target like one of the NanoPi’s, make sure you run OpenWrt 24.10.0 or a comparably current snapshot after this commit. Prior to that commit, SQM and VPN on OpenWrt were ~40% slower than on FriendlyWrt. I suspect the speedtest I linked showing an R5S handling 885 Mbps CAKE was running FriendlyWrt. In general, some awareness of this compiler option change is necessary to interpret SQM capability reported on the forum over the years for rockchip targets.
Aside - if you find a used R4S for the right price, it is good option too. The lan port hang on boot issue was just fixed in 24.10.4 stable.
That, or used Edgerouter X for under $50. The Edgerouter X is a bit finicky to flash OpenWrt on though - several steps starting with a custom compiled initramfs image before flashing a sysupgrade image.
However, the MT7621 in both the er605 and Edgerouter X is a bit anemic these days. Neither would be my first choice for that reason. SQM is going to top out around 150-200 Mbps, so you may want to limit that to your egress only. Wireguard similarly is not going to be blazing fast. Though either should handle adblock OK.
I suppose if space were at a premium, SQM and wireguard throughput was not terribly important, and there was no room for a tiny router and switch both, these could fill the bill. Otherwise, I would stick to a NanoPi R3S, R4S or R5x.
The filogic travel router options are interesting, but if you don’t need the WiFi and you do need more switch ports, I think the NanoPi’s are a better option if you need to pair a travel router with a switch regardless.
Yeah, I have an ER-X which is pretty much the same, running OpenWrt latest on it. Just wondering whether there’s something better out there more on par with the ER-12 I will be replacing. Not sure whether it’s worth trying to find a deal on an ER-4 and how well it works with OpenWrt. In general I like the EdgeRouter hardware, it seems to do well in high temps, the mesh metal case helps (all cases should be designed like this, good airflow doesn’t hurt).
I’m still on DOCSIS 3.0 cable - 500/20. The local cable ISP came around on pricing fast when symmetric fiber came to the neighborhood, and the fiber company knows they are a little better and prices a little higher accordingly. So I improve the cable service with SQM, don’t notice the slower upload much and tolerate it when I do to pocket the savings.
Most reports of symmetric fiber latency without SQM on the forum are so much better than I get with SQM (average in the mid 20’s and 95th percentile around 40ms, with very occasional spikes), that I’m amused when I see folks complaining about 10ms or such. Since you already have an ER-X and symmetric fiber, it sounds like you are probably all set. Perhaps flash 24.10.4 on the ER-X if you have not already,
Hardware offload on the ER-X should handle your fiber connection, and the 256MB of memory on the ER-X should be enough to handle ad blocking with the OpenWrt adblock package if you do not get too crazy loading up many large block lists. I use the defaults of adguard, adguard_tracking, and certpl. I just turned it off on my R5C and gained about 4.7 MiB. Seems like that should work within the 256 MB on your ER-X, but only one way to find out.
@wired Careful to research the migration path for this first though. It’s been a while since I did it, but as I recall, the flash layout was changed for 24.10, and requires you first install an earlier OpenWrt version before updating to 24.10.
Thanks! Yep, it’s already on 24.10.4 and I had to do the custom scripts dance to get it there.
My ER-12 has been running fine, well over 1 year of uptime on stock EdgeOS. This is more me trying to break a good thing! I’d like to standardize on OpenWrt as much as I can, on switches too. Also somewhat worried that the ER-12 feels abandonware, stuck on kernel v4, who knows whether there are any security issues with it. Unfortunately Ubiquiti is not what it used to be.
I’ve been using the Meraki MX65 for two weeks and I’m still very impressed. It has an aluminium case and is silent with 2 GB of RAM. I opened the case to flash it, but it's probably possible with a dedicated LAN-to-serial cable. I got it cheap on eBay. It can be powered via PoE, but I suggest taking one with a dedicated power adapter (54V, 6.3 x 3.0 plug).
It has two PoE supply ports. They do not work with the latest firmware and need some modifications, which are available on the forum modified images. I hope to use it normally up to 15W, but I have not measured it. Yes, ports are divided into groups. Actually i use just 4 ports from 12
(plus cheap and readily available)