TP-Link ER605 + ASUS GT-AC5300 - DUAL WAN

[Tech9]

Keep using it and see what happens. My ISP is giving 1h IP lease time when it sees a new device. The next lease is 24h. Like "we don't know you buddy, stay put for a while". Perhaps Verizon is initially throttling you with this unknown device on their network. Any special requirements, MTU?

 

[ForkWNY]

That's possible...I'm not aware of any special MTU requirements. I always leave MTU at default, 1500. Never used any special custom settings on the ASUS either.

I'm still leaning toward a custom x86 box running pfSense, since I like to tinker. I'm leaning toward this guy, but I'm not 100% sure what type of RAM/NVMe SSD to buy for it. Not much info on the product page...

 

[Tech9]

Not much info on the product page...

It's there:

 

[ForkWNY]

Scrolled down and found it...ordered up the memory and SSD. Looking forward to setting up/configuring. I'll leave the ER605 in place for the next few days...will see if Verizon is possibly throttling temporarily. Anything's possible.

 

[Tech9]

I like to tinker

Tinkering coming. pfSense/OPNsense give you many possibilities, but not as easy to setup like Asuswrt and Omada.

 

[ForkWNY]

Tinkering coming. pfSense/OPNsense give you many possibilities, but not as easy to setup like Asuswrt and Omada.

I don't intend on connecting it to the WANs until I've fully configured everything within pfSense while the device is off the network. I'll hook it up to a display and go through setup until it's all set. I've worked with a variety of Linux distro's over the years, but don't have any prior experience with pfSense. Lots of good info online for it though, not to mention countless youtube videos on how to configure it.

 

[ForkWNY]

@Tech9 - just a FYI that I got the mini-PC running OPNsense up and running. Nearly every single speedtest now measures over 900Mbps upstream and downstream over Fios, whereas the ER605 had very spotty results. Day/night difference with performance, though I'll admit OPNsense was slightly more complicated to setup, and I still have quite a bit to learn. I'll figure it all out in due time though. For now it's working fantastically w/load balancing/failover completely set up.

 

[Tech9]

I'm sure your mini PC is >10 times faster in everything than $60 basic router.

 

[ForkWNY]

No doubt it's much faster/more powerful. While I won't bash the ER605 any further, it is a very nice router for the $$, 1Gb symmetrical seems to be beyond its capabilities. The x86 mini-PC is an amazing piece of hardware...I've only begun scratching the surface of what this thing can do.

 

[Smokey613]

No doubt it's much faster/more powerful. While I won't bash the ER605 any further, it is a very nice router for the $$, 1Gb symmetrical seems to be beyond its capabilities. The x86 mini-PC is an amazing piece of hardware...I've only begun scratching the surface of what this thing can do.

With pfSense you can easily wind up ”down the rabbit hole” exploring it’s capabilities. Have fun!

 

[Christos]

Yes, Netgate 6100. Too expensive for home use indeed. (....) This is simply not needed for 3-4 users network.

Adding to this, Netgate's 6100 price includes the license and TAC support that is required for a business environment. You pay the hardware plus license and support. For home/lab use, pfSense+ is free and you can configure and maintain it without paying for support.

 

[ForkWNY]

pfSense and OPNsense are both open source, GPL-licensed. As long as you're using them for personal/educational/etc. use, you don't need to pay anything for it. Netgate is a commercial product that uses pfSense as their firmware on their own routers. The benefit of Netgate is you get their support and expertise whenever needed when you buy their products.

There's enough info out on the web and in pfSense/OPNSense documentation to set them up from start to finish, though some things like firewall rules, port forwarding, and more complex setups you have to more or less figure out on your own or through trial and error. I definitely locked myself out of the OPNsense web UI accidentally a couple of times (by removing firewall rules I thought were garbage), but it's so easy to simply reboot the router and revert to a backup (the config gets backed up after every change) that it only took seconds to undo any wrongful changes I made. While OPNsense (and pfSense for that matter) are more complicated to configure, they're vastly more stable and loaded with more features than just about anything off-the-shelf. Smokey613 is right-on...can definitely end up down the rabbit's hole pretty fast with the amount of configuration available...it's overwhelming at times. I chose OPNSense because it's somewhat dumbed-down from pfSense, and allegedly somewhat easier to configure. OPNsense is simply a fork release of pfSense and I am so far pretty impressed with the UI, amount of updates, and the number of 1-click options available in the UI (such as updating with the click of a button).

 

[Tech9]

Netgate's 6100 price includes the license and TAC support that is required for a business environment.

Not really. The real support options are subscription services.

Netgate Global Support

Netgate Technical Assistance Center (TAC) is a 24x7 operation with a worldwide team of support engineers unparalleled at diagnosing and resolving issues

www.netgate.com

The benefit of Netgate

Guaranteed to work on their own hardware is the biggest benefit. Very important with updates.

 

[Smokey613]

I just had to post an update on my TP-Link ER605 deployment.

You can see my current setup in my signature.

I have now configured my ER605 with three WAN connections:
Primary WAN is my cable ISP: 300/30
Secondary WAN is fiber: 100/100 - I am routing my Plex server out this interface to utilize the 100M upload.
Third WAN is an AT&T USB cell modem

I am still utilizing both the cable modem and the fiber modem. Both have the WAN IPs of the ER605 in a DMZ
So far, this caused no issues and makes it easier if I need the provider to troubleshoot connection issues.

This little router is really amazing, especially for $60 US

 

[Tech9]

Come on now... Triple WAN on $60 router. Are you teasing Asus router owners?

Got change back to eero Pro notification. What happened to your Asus routers?

 

[sfx2000]

pfSense and OPNsense are both open source, GPL-licensed.

pfSense is not gpl - it's apache 2.0 licensed...

Learn About the pfSense Project

pfSense is a free and open source firewall and router that also features unified threat management, load balancing, multi WAN, and more

www.pfsense.org

which is a bit of trouble, as pfsense includes code that is gpl and bsd licensed - one cannot sublet licensing, and this makes it very troublesome for 3rd party devs to work on that platform. But that's always been netgate - jim thompson and friends have always been like this - good and evil - fund ARM development for BSD, and then kick folks like wireguard to the curb when things go awry... let's not forget the whole opnsense debacle with those guys.

In any event - pfsense is a bit of a dead-end, as tnsr is their future - as i mentioned, they do good work, but they are truly horrible for many.

I ran pfSense for a number of years, finally got tired of their BS, and moved on...

 

[sfx2000]

Come on now... Triple WAN on $60 router. Are you teasing Asus router owners?

Just saying - wired routers of that class...

if Asus were to do a wired only device, that's about what they could ask for pricing wise in the same performance class..

 

[Tech9]

Asus version is going to have RGB, red and black color and be called ROG Extreme Gaming Controller - $399

 

[Smokey613]

Come on now... Triple WAN on $60 router. Are you teasing Asus router owners?

Got change back to eero Pro notification. What happened to your Asus routers?

The RT-AC86Us worked pretty good, better 2.4g wall penetration than any other Asus router I have tried, however the eero Pro is actually a little better and their mesh is much better than Asus.

The best thing is, if I want to try other APs I do not have to rebuild my network.

I am thinking about an Omada setup……

 

[Tech9]

if I want to try other APs

2x EAP610 V2