are you tired of your wireless router dropping your internet connection at the
worst possible time well it turns out you can build your very own router
that'll perform a lot better and it's a lot simpler to do than you might think
but why do store bot and ISP provided routers tend to be so unreliable in the
first place shutting down this this isn't Techquickie this is lonus Tech
tips where we actually do the things we talk about so Bit Defender a staple in
cyber security sponsored this video to show you how easy it is to get better
performance and reliability as well as better security and privacy by building
your own custom router and how you can even do it with your dad's Dusty old
D the problem with your typical big box
or ISP provided router is that they're usually not just a router instead
they're often combo devices that include a wireless access point to provide Wi-Fi
a switch to connect your local devices together and the literal router with
which connects your local devices to the outside internet in a safe manner not
only does this make it impossible to replace or upgrade any part
independently of the others but each of these functions can be better performed
by separate discrete devices now listen it's not realistic or economical to try
to build your own switch or access point but the good news is that these devices
are widely available at reasonable prices the router though that's a
different story and that's what we're going to be focusing on building today
pretty much any x86 computer from the last 10 or 15 years or so should work
better than your typical Diaper Genie we're going to be using this Dell
Optiplex 7010 that Anthony previously used to build a Home Server since it's
small form factor won't take up too much space it only costs around 100 bucks on
eBay and most importantly see right there it has an available PCIe gen 3
slot that's important because we need at least two Network ports one for land to
connect to our switch and one for when to connect to our modem or fiber box
your old motherboard including this one probably only come with one Jack and
while we could use that along with a separate port on another network card
you'll want to make sure that both are well supported by your router operating
system of choice more on that in a moment while most Network controllers
may seem to work fine you may run into performance issues with certain chipsets
and certain manufacturers so our recommendation is to stick to an
Intel-based Nick whenever possible if you're unsure of what Nick you have or
whether your Nick is compatible you can typically find the model on your motherboard box or product page and from
there Google is your best friend if that's sounds like too much work you can
easily find older dual Port Intel network cards like the i340 for around
25 bucks on eBay or maybe even cheaper from a local electronics recycler we're
going to be using the four port version of this card since we already had one lying around oh I don't even need a
screwdriver if I did LTT Store.com the
damn oplex are too good now if you happen to have greater than gigabit
internet a single port Intel i225 2.5
gig Nick can be had for around the same price and for 10 gig the Dual T Intel
X540 T2 will run you around 50 to 70 bucks on eBay knock to a fan not
included now since we're on the topic of Hardware our Optiplex is equipped with a
core I 73770 and should be totally fine for
running gigabit or 2.5 Gig if you want to go faster than that say 10 gig you're
going to want more CPU power so make sure you check the recommended specs and
ask around in the community to figure out what should work for you we're going
to also be installing a 256 gig SSD which fits behind the hard drive pretty
nicely and we're also going to take this hard drive out because that's just a bunch of extra power consumption we
don't need with our Hardware ready it's time to talk software the two biggest
players in the space right now are pfSense and open sense both of which are
based on the Unix like operating system FreeBSD they're very similar because
open sense started off as a fork of pfSense and you can't really go wrong
with either but we like open sense for it's subjectively easier to use goey and
more frequent updates for example on our own core router the main 25 gig Nick in
it still isn't supported by pfSense if you're following along at home grab
yourself a copy of open sense from the official site pick your architecture and
select the VGA image type the other option is serial but if you use serial
ports to manage your networking equipment you probably don't need to be watching this video to install open
sense you can use a tool like eter or Rufus to make a bootable USB installer
plug that into your soon Tobe router and select it from the boot menu let all the
countdowns finish and if your computer happens to have an internal speaker like ours you'll be greeted with a noise that
sounds a little bit like a Japanese rice cooker
it's not unpleasant it's just a bit loud if your system doesn't have a display
output you can install open sense onto your drive in a different system and
then move it over but if you have a monitor look at that monitor with your eyeballs throughout the boot sequence it
will ask for manual intervention a few times but you can just skip these once
you're greeted by the login prompt take a second to check the port numbering on
your system you can do this by taking a cable that's plugged into a nearby PC
and putting into each port on the router and marking those ports down this will
be important later once you're done hit enter to bring the login prompt back
type installer as the username and open sense as the password don't worry here
if you're not seeing anything show up it is actually typing it's just not showing
it for security if you want to try open sense out you can instead log in as root
for a live install but your settings will not survive a reboot without being
manually backed up you have been warned select your keyboard layout if it's not
the default US map hit install ufs select your boot drive hit okay on Swap
and the confirmation and then open sense will install like a good little boy once
it's done we'd recommend changing your root password to something a little more secure then you can exit and reboot Tech
tip don't forget to remove the USB during the reboot otherwise you might
boot back into the installer once you're booted back up plug your client system
into the port selected as Lan in the console then navigate to
192.168.1.1 in your browser log in with root and the password you set and Bam
you now have a functional open sense router from here there's settings for
just about anything you can imagine but be careful because it's very easily to
entirely bork your router if you go and change settings you don't understand I'm
going to show you guys a few important ones that will actually be helpful for you first and foremost is the DHCP
settings by default open sense sets its IP range on the DHCP server from 100 to
199 that means it's only going to allow for a 100 devices connected to your
network for most home Gamers this is probably okay but you can also tweak
this down to say 50 and this one up to 254 and that's going to give you over
200 devices you can also set the DNS settings that your clients use here so
if you want to use say cloud flare or Google DNS you'd want to put that in
these fields and then make sure you hit save when you're done otherwise these
settings won't apply it's also important to know how to update your system so to
do so go to system firmware and then updates it'll check for any updates and
then allow you to apply them the last thing you'll probably want to know is how to change your interface assignments
these are going to be under interfaces and then assignments from here you can change your Lan or Wan ports if you want
to use a different port and this is where you would assign a VLAN if that's
something you know how to set up open sense has other cool features like being
able to back up your config to Google Drive on a schedule I'd highly recommend
setting that up you can disable the screaming rice cooker noise and you can port forward like any other router but
be careful as the firewall is an important part of your network security
aside from the Limitless customization potential frequent security updates and
the ability to swap parts a DIY router encourages you to be more mindful not
just in how your network is used but how your network is protected just like Bit
Defender premium security isn't just an antivirus product it's a whole Suite of
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devices it's a password manager so you can stop us using password 123 for
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the link down below you might have noticed by now that we only have a single land port assigned even if you
had extra on your system and you wanted to use these for other devices to have
to use software switching on these ports is very inefficient and typically can't
run anywhere near line speed instead a cheap multi-port switch like this guy or
the Netgear GS3 weight can be had for around 20 bucks on Amazon or they can be
even cheaper if they have a plastic housing or fewer ports just make sure
that it's full gigabit speed if you're running 2.5 gig or 10 gig these switches
get a lot more expensive but we found a trend net 2.5 gig unit for 120 bucks and
for 10 gig the cheapest option we could find is the ubiquity switch Flex XG with
four 10 gig ports for 300 bucks once you have some form of switch plug it into
the wall and then the landan port of your router and any of your other devices on your network can plug
directly into the remaining ports the last last thing we need to reach feature
parody with our combo unit is some Wi-Fi now there's a lot of options here
ranging in price from literal trash you can find at any dump all the way up to
Enterprise grade access points that can run you thousands of dollars many of the
off-the-shelf home routers that we've been talking about replacing can be used
purely for Wi-Fi by finding a setting called AP mode or bridge mode however
the performance is usually pretty not great so unless you're trying to do this
with Hardware you already have we'd recommend picking up a standalone access
point like these from ubiquity or a mesh system like the TPL link Deco Netgear
Orbee or Amazon's Euros system for the purposes of this video we have a
ubiquity UniFi 6 long range which can be had for 179 bucks or the light version
of it is only $100 you can also find them cheaper secondhand once your Wi-Fi
is set up everything should kind of just function together so let's run a speed
test this is on wired on my laptop here but we should be able to get full
gigabit and we can see the CPU usage which is very interesting oh there we go
two ping 700 800 900 megabits and we're
only using like 7% CP usage which is pretty dang good let's check our upload
speed it's basically the same Sweet let's try Wi-Fi it's not a very good test
on the Wi-Fi cuz I don't know what it's set to but um I'm sure it's sure it's
plenty fast yeah like 200 down that's pretty good we're in a very congested
area right now there's a lot of access points and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth so I
wouldn't expect the speeds to be too crazy but your mileage may vary of
course if you're in a country where electricity is so expensive that running
a 4090 is borderline unethical you may instead opt for something a little more
power efficient micro PCS like this won't be as upgradeable but can be as
much as 10 times more power efficient some of them even have 2.5 gig Ethernet
built in now they do cost more upfront but depending on your electricity cost
you might end up saving in the long run our Optiplex was somewhere between 30
and 40 Watts while doing absolutely nothing and I'm sure a lot more when the
CPU starts to crank up so your mileage may vary that's it then for 100 bucks on
this Optiplex 20 bucks on a switch and 100 bucks for an access point we built
an infinitely more configurable more upgradable more better router access
point switch combo that you get to Tinker with all on your own you get
better control of your network security and you get better control of your
privacy it's fun for the whole family except when it doesn't work but surely
this will work more than your ISP provided one so thanks to Bit Defender
for sponsoring this video Bit Defender premium Security offers threat
protection for up to 10 devices and that includes an unlimited VPN a password
manager and priority support so save 59% on a year of Bit Defender premium
security by following the link in the description down below if you like this
video maybe check out that one where we upgraded our office router and took the
internet out multiple times in the middle of the workday it was funnier
when we had like 15 employees but now that there's like 80 it's a it's a
little prohibitive to do that yeah