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is a separate firewall required or does openwrt include that? (self.networking)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by imaradio to c/[email protected]

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For a while I have been planning to switch from an all-in-one wifi router to having separate devices because that way they can be upgraded piece by piece instead of having to replace the whole thing.

I am confused about the role of the firewall.

If I have a router running OpenWRT, does it have a firewall included? Either by default or by installing certain packages?

Or is it required to have a separate firewall running opnsense/pfsense?

If not required, what would be the benefits that would lean in favour of separate firewall?

use case: small home network 2-3 users. some internal self hosting and maybe one day external self hosting.

ETA: The best internet I could subscribe to where I’m at is 1024 Mbps down, 50 Mbps up. So don’t worry about wasting fibre speeds. :(

My assembled components so far are: router, WAPs, switches, ethernet cable and cable modem.

Thanks for any advice.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (15 children)

Openwrt includes a firewall, but most wifi routers aren't fast enough to run complicated firewall rules, VPNs, etc. at full speed. If you want to set up complicated firewall rules or run a VPN server on the same machine as your firewall (you can always use a different server), AND you have a fast internet connection (like 1gbps) and want full speed then it's a good idea to use a faster x86 machine for the firewall. Lots of people just use openwrt and live with the performance penalty, though.

[–] imaradio 1 points 2 years ago (8 children)

The best internet I could subscribe to where I’m at is 1024 Mbps down, 50 Mbps up. :(

Sounds like I can just use the router then.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Isn’t 1024 Mbps the same as 1 Gbps?

[–] imaradio 1 points 2 years ago

aaahh yes... you are right. I got the place values mixed up. ty :)

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