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After a hardware upgrade I ended up with a spare mini pc. Noticed these two icons and thought I might be able to use it as a WiFi access point with VLANs using OPNsense.
Is that possible? If so, what do I even need to buy to plug into there?
I don't need it to do any fancy dhcp, dns or firewall stuff, I just need a WiFi access point with support for VLANs.
opnSense and WiFi don't play too well due to limited BSD WiFi support.
OpenWRT is a much better choice for an AP.
At least make sure the WiFi on the minipc is supported by opnSense before attempting that...
I don't mind which software, I could absolutely use openwrt instead. Assuming I do, which hardware might I need?
I only used OpenWRT on netgear (arm) hardware... So for x86 I have no idea, but they have great forums you can lurk or inquire...
It should support all WiFi chipsets supported by Linux.
Thanks, I'll try to get more info on their forums then
https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/installation/openwrt_x86
Openwrt generally works great on x64 PCs. Thiss machine will most likely be more beefy than your home router and could become your main firewall. It can handle adblocking and vpn client for all PCs on the network as well or whatever your need, as openwrt can do many nice things no commercial router can do out of the box. Install openwrt on your home router as well and use that as access point (connected via cable). You will improve your wifi signal as well. If your machine does not come with rj45 lan ports, install usb3 to rj45 adapters to the usb3.0 ports. They will give you the full 1000 mbit speeds.
OpenWRT isn't quite as reliable as opnsense because it doesn't have dual partitions. In the future that might change but for now OpenWRT focuses on max compatibly.
In practice what this means is that you must be careful not force off OpenWRT when flashing firmware.
My current setup runs OPNsense on an x86 machine with 2.5Gbps ports (as an LXC inside proxmox), whereas the one in my post only has 1Gbps ports. But the location of it isn't great for wifi, which is why I want to use this separate machine for wifi only. So there's really no need for me to do firewall etc. on this one, I really just want something that can do VLAN'd wifi networks.