Hi Folks,
I host a nextcloud instance, a NAS, and a few content portals for things like ebooks and music (internal only). I’ll be migrating Smartthings to Home Assistant eventually. We’re going to be upgrading to fiber soon and I have the opportunity to rebuild my wife’s network with a long term outlook (we’ll likely be here for years). Currently we have an older eero mesh system over cable internet. My desk is right where the cable currently comes in so all my Ethernet devices can live near the router.
My question is this:
What am I missing out on as a self-hoster by using whatever equipment metronet gives me?
What am I missing out on as a regular internet user by using the default equipment.
Am I likely to be annoyed about where the fiber comes into the house?
If it makes sense to buy my own router or access point(s), what is a reasonable balance between “daddy Bezos please read all my emails” and “you’ll never be secure until you build a router from custom circuit boards you custom ordered and hand assembled in a secure area”.
I’d like to avoid complex configuration, but if I can surface advanced options when needed, that would be great.
My Linux knowledge is intermediate. My networking knowledge is begintermediate.
I’m thinking about the RS6 a lot but really want to put Alpine Linux on it if I can manage it. My reasoning is I already know how to set up a router from scratch on the command line.
OpenWRT is probably easier but I’ve had bad experiences with its UI (and the distro as a whole) in the past, but the version of it on my GL.inet travel router is pretty rock solid though the UI still annoys me and I’d rather do most configuration via SSH.
Does OpenWRT support multiple WireGuard interfaces and VLANs? This is kind of what I’m wanting.
pfSense (I know, it’s UNIX) looked good on paper too but after playing with it on a VPS the UI just seemed overly complex. I don’t want to learn the ins and outs of some weird UI.