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0 points_ea1k6y ago0 comments

I use one running OpenWRT as a router. Its an old 3B, so it barely keeps up now that our internet has been updated to 100Mbps. It will soon be replaced, possibly with a pi 4. Of course, it also runs some other things.

I have OpenVPN running on it as well as a little nginx instance that I can use for reverse proxying if need be.

And the wifi turned out to be surprisingly solid as a (slow) access point, so I have sometimes used it as a Internet of Things Access Point with routing rules to keep all of those devices off the internet.

Its a surprisingly powerful little network box even with its significant limitations.

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yumraj6y ago

Don't you need two Ethernet ports to use it as a router?

Are you using USB as the other Ethernet port?

_ea1kOP6y ago

Yes, you do need two and it does significantly limit throughput since both the internal and external Ethernet adapters are routed through the same USB bus. The 3B seems to top out at about 90Mbps. I'm not sure what the throughput on a 3B+ would have been, but I'm sure it would have been much lower than its maximum of ~270Mbps.

Having said that, much of the US is restricted to <100Mbps internet and there are some nice advantages to having a relatively powerful little computer running right at the edge.

Piskvorrr6y ago

Any two interfaces. Ethernet+wifi is enough. (Technically, RPi's integrated ethernet port is also connected over USB) I have once seen a single interface both for external and internal network, but that was an abomination.

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