[kwlug-disc] IPCop (and friends) vs hardware router

[L.D. Paniak]

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I'm glad you got my note!  I have yet to see it pop up on the mailing
list.  Maybe my spam filter got it...

Paul Nijjar wrote:
> 
> Maybe 150-200 computers at most. 
> 
> At some point we are wanting to do OpenVPN encryption (net-net as well
> as net-host). 
> 

If some sizable number of those computers are going to be in use
simultaneously and you have more than a couple of VPN clients, your
router might start sweating under the load.

> Would you recommend OpenWRT as the firmware? Should I consider dd-wrt?
> 

dd-wrt is not an open source project.  From their "About DD-WRT":

"For devices mainly used for private purposes, DD-WRT is freely
available. Platforms used for commercial purposes require a paid license."

I am partial to OpenWRT for functional reasons: The package management
of OpenWRT is aimed to warm the heart of any deb fan, there are a wide
selection of packages for almost any conceivable application. dd-wrt has
no native package system and depends on OpenWRT packaging anyway.

You could start off with an OpenWRT router setup as unsolicited
suggested.  The beauty of OpenWRT is that if you find your router
hardware is not up to the task, you don't have to start over on a more
robust system.  OpenWRT supports x86.  Just take your installed package
list from the router and use it to load the new (Atom-powered?) router.
 You could probably almost copy /etc/config straight across and reboot
into the same functionality with improved performance.

If you run OpenWRT on an x86 gateway, you could use if for routing,
traffic shaping, VPN and VOIP all at once.

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