Hi,
I am looking for some advice before I go and buy a shiny new router and start all this good firmware tweaking
I have a reasonable knowledge of networking, but not so much of the intricacies of the router options being discussed.
I live in Cyprus and they have concrete houses with lots of reinforcing in walls and ceilings (i.e.crap for wifi) so am looking for as strong a signal as possible, the nature of walls etc also make it tricky to get cat5 runs in although I have got some drilled through in places, so I may well be able to re-use my apple express as an extender.
Our Internet connection is not going to strain any of the current hardware (10 meg connection), but hopefully it will change before too long so I do want to future proof myself as much as possible (I know its not really possible, I suppose I'm saying that I can afford it so I'm not looking at budget options, but also don't want to waste money). One problem I have is that the provider (very little choice of provider here) locks down their router so I have to have their router first, then extend via a 192.168.2.1 address. However they will (and have) open all ports to this address, so although it is an internal IP, it does have all ports available.
I have a bunch of IP cameras, home automation stuff and remote connections so I need to be able to access from outside.
I need NAT loopback
Most importantly I need to be able to direct specific IP's to use my PureVPN connection that gives me a UK IP whilst allowing all the other clients to use normal local IP's.
I have ended up shortlisting the ASUS RT-AC68U partly because of the Merlin optional firmware, it's probably way over-specced for my needs, but as I say I don't want to repeat this in the near future, is my choice a good one or am I on the wrong track?
Many thanks
I am looking for some advice before I go and buy a shiny new router and start all this good firmware tweaking
I have a reasonable knowledge of networking, but not so much of the intricacies of the router options being discussed.
I live in Cyprus and they have concrete houses with lots of reinforcing in walls and ceilings (i.e.crap for wifi) so am looking for as strong a signal as possible, the nature of walls etc also make it tricky to get cat5 runs in although I have got some drilled through in places, so I may well be able to re-use my apple express as an extender.
Our Internet connection is not going to strain any of the current hardware (10 meg connection), but hopefully it will change before too long so I do want to future proof myself as much as possible (I know its not really possible, I suppose I'm saying that I can afford it so I'm not looking at budget options, but also don't want to waste money). One problem I have is that the provider (very little choice of provider here) locks down their router so I have to have their router first, then extend via a 192.168.2.1 address. However they will (and have) open all ports to this address, so although it is an internal IP, it does have all ports available.
I have a bunch of IP cameras, home automation stuff and remote connections so I need to be able to access from outside.
I need NAT loopback
Most importantly I need to be able to direct specific IP's to use my PureVPN connection that gives me a UK IP whilst allowing all the other clients to use normal local IP's.
I have ended up shortlisting the ASUS RT-AC68U partly because of the Merlin optional firmware, it's probably way over-specced for my needs, but as I say I don't want to repeat this in the near future, is my choice a good one or am I on the wrong track?
Many thanks
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