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.

  • imaradioOPEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    ok, ok, I don’t know how numbers work oops

    I doubt the WAN would provide the advertised top theoretical speed most of the time; I just don’t want to be running at like 10% of potential or something like that. If I were to do that I should at least get a cheaper plan.

    • Ajen@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      You might see a 10% performance hit with gigabit internet depending on what you enable in openwrt and how fast your hardware is. On the other hand I wouldn’t compare openwrt speed against the advertised speed. Test the actual speed you get by plugging your computer directly into your modem.

      • imaradioOPEnglish
        1·
        11 months ago

        I mean I don’t want to take a 90% performance hit lol. I can def live with 10% hit.

        • Ajen@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          2·
          11 months ago

          My bad. Yeah, you’ll be fine. On the other hand, if you want to spend hundreds/thousands of $$ on network and server hardware, that’s also an option ;)