[HN Gopher] What changes when you turn a Linux box into a router
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What changes when you turn a Linux box into a router
Author : 0o_MrPatrick_o0
Score : 62 points
Date : 2026-03-31 13:13 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (patrickmccanna.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (patrickmccanna.net)
| eqvinox wrote:
| That's not a router, that's a CPE, and one without IPv6 support.
| oxygen_crisis wrote:
| Technically it's an IPv4 router once you enable
| net.ipv4.ip_forward in step 1, the rest is enabling a whole lot
| of supplementary services and operations not intrinsic to the
| definition of a router.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| I didn't see in TFA --although I may have missed it-- where it
| said it was replacing the ISP's router/CPE. Anything routing
| traffic is a router.
|
| At home I've got both a CPE given by my ISP and my own router
| that routes and bridges traffic between two LANs of mine (192.
| and 10.).
|
| Moreover the lack of IPv6 inside our own LANs is, for many of
| us, a feature. It doesn't mean we don't have an IPv6 address:
| it just means we have the choice and did choose to have our own
| LANs on IPv4 only. And, no, I don't care that it makes some
| programmers at some megacorp' lives more difficult to "reach"
| inside my networks.
|
| I'm the boss at my home and my router is IPv4 only.
|
| And I've got that in addition to my ISP's CPE.
| trelane wrote:
| What is "CPE" in this context? It's probably not "Common
| Platform Enumeration" (my top results for "cpe linux") or
| "Customer-Premises Equipment." ("cpe networking")
| bombcar wrote:
| I think it's your second one (used to be called the "modem"
| in the modem-router- pc setups of yore).
| trelane wrote:
| > CPE generally refers to devices such as telephones,
| routers, network switches, residential gateways (RG), set-
| top boxes, fixed mobile convergence products, home
| networking adapters and Internet access gateways that
| enable consumers to access providers' communication
| services and distribute them in a residence or enterprise
| with a local area network (LAN).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customer-premises_equipment
|
| Given that the Wikipedia definition of CPE _includes_
| routers, I don 't see how calling it CPE _precludes_ it
| being a router, as the poster claimed:
|
| > That's not a router, that's a CPE, and one without IPv6
| support
| bombcar wrote:
| I think a CPE could (be/include) a router, but usually it
| refers to the demarc between the provider's network and
| the customer's (no matter who owns/manages it).
|
| For a Linux box to be a true CPE you'd likely need
| somewhat of a specialized card, one that can communicate
| directly to the next device up the line (e.g, take
| commercial fiber or cable in, ISDN modem, etc).
|
| If it just shoots out ethernet into some other box next
| to it, it's likely not a CPE.
| landdate wrote:
| I mean the wikipedia literally states:
|
| > CPE generally refers to devices such as telephones,
| routers, network switches, residential gateways (RG),
| set-top boxes, fixed mobile convergence products, home
| networking adapters and Internet access gateways that
| enable consumers to access providers' communication
| services
|
| From my understanding any type of device that is used to
| extend or facilitate provider services is a CPE. So a
| router just acting as an extender would still be a cpe,
| as would a modem, as would anything that is on the
| customer side and facilitates provider services. Only
| situation a router wouldn't be a cpe is if it was just
| for a local lan network.
| landdate wrote:
| Googling "cpe vs router" shows websites comparing "Customer
| Premises Equipment" with routers. I don't think it fits
| though.
| marssaxman wrote:
| Thank you for informing me that a novel definition of the term
| "router" has come along since the last time I turned a Linux
| box into a router. The world changes in strange ways sometimes!
| Havoc wrote:
| Used to run a virtualized firewall setup. And then one day
| discovered that somewhere along the lines I had made a change (or
| an update changed something) that meant proxmox admin interface
| was being served publicly. That's despite confirming during
| initial setup that it isn't.
|
| So now I do not do any funky stuff with firewalls anymore.
| Separate appliance with opnsense bare metal.
| tarruda wrote:
| I currently do something similar.
|
| My router is a 16GB n150 mini PC with dual NICs. The actual
| router OS is within openwrt VM managed by Incus (VM/Container
| hypervisor) that has both NICs passed through.
|
| One of the NICs is connected to another OpenWrt wifi access
| point, and the other is connected to the ISP modem.
|
| The n150 also has a wifi card that I setup as an additional AP
| I can connect to if something goes wrong with the
| virtualization setup.
|
| Been running this for at least 6 months and has been working
| pretty well.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Both port specific firewall rules, and web-server IP
| permissions are important.
|
| For example, bandwidth rate-limiting may be inhibited for
| admin SSH or package updates, and LAN IPv4 private ranges for
| your host address pool are set.
|
| Finally, your internal DHCP should statically bind your admin
| computer MAC to a fixed LAN host IP to further reduce issues.
|
| Personally, I always build my NAS from scratch, as I have
| lost count of the number of problems web-GUI have caused over
| the years. =3
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(page generated 2026-04-03 23:00 UTC)