My Linksys router died this morning - fortunately, I had a spare Netgear one laying around, but manually replacing all DHCP reservations (security cameras, user devices, network devices, specific IoT devices) and port forwarding options was a tedious pain. I needed a quick solution; my job is remote, so I factory reset the Netgear (I wasn’t sure what settings were already on it) and applied the most important settings to get the job done.
I’m looking for recommendations for either a more mature setup, backup solution, or another solution. Currently, my internet is provided from an AT&T ONT, which has almost everything disabled (DHCP included), and was passing through to my Linksys router. This acted as the router and DHCP server, and provided a direct connection to an 8-port switch, which split off into devices, 2 more routers acting as access points (one for the other side of the house, one for the separated garage, DHCP disabled on both).
If going the route of a backup solution, is it feasible to install OpenWRT on all of my devices, with the expectation that I can do some sort of automated backups of all settings and configurations, and restore in case of a router dying?
If going the route of a smarter solution, I’m not sure what to consider, so I’d love to hear some input. I think having so many devices using DHCP reservations might not be the way to go, but it’s the best way I’ve been able to provide organization and structure to my growing collection of network devices.
If going with a more mature setup, I’m not sure what to consider for a fair ballpark budget / group of devices for a home network. I’ve been eyeing the Ubiquiti Cloud Gateway + 3 APs for a while (to replace my current 1 router / 2 routers-in-AP-mode setup), but am wondering if the selfhosted community has any better recommendations.
I’m happy to provide more information - I understand that selfhosting / home network setup is not a one-size-fits-all.
That’s what I do. Every device runs OpenWRT except my ONT. Backing up is just a cron script that calls each one and pulls the config.
For my router, I ended up buying an old Barracuda LoadBalancer 340 and installing OpenWRT (it’s an x86 device so it was super easy). It’s a little over-powered for a router, but the price was right. It’s got more than enough spare resources to run some extra stuff, including Docker, so I’m probably going to throw my PiHole container on there since I haven’t been impressed with AdGuard Home (which is available in the repos).
I’m not very experienced with OpenWRT - how sensitive is it to device changes? If your Barracuda dies tomorrow, do you have to purchase the same brand / model, or could you slap your saved config onto a similar device? Is there some sort of device compatibility to consider?
The barracuda I have is
basicallyan x64 board in a 1U half-depth case with two extra network adapters (3 total including the onboard one). I have two of them: one’s running OpenWRT (my router) and the other vanilla Debian.So if my router one dies, I can just either pull the drive from it or restore a config backup to another suitable PC that has two NICs (or promote the second unit I have).
The config in openwrt is abstracted. So if the hardware and NICs are totally different, you might need to reconfigure the device names in the config so they’re referencing the right NICs, but everything else should “just work” (e.g. WAN and LAN are just arbitrary labels).