On Thu, 25 Apr 2019 at 10:57, Lennart Sorensen via talk <talk@gtalug.org> wrote:

> If you actually use the Bell router functions, what do you use your
> own router for?
>
> - an AP + a switch?
>
> - double-NATting (seems like a bad idea)?

Agreed. I run my VDSL2 modem in bridged mode with it's wifi turned off
(don't need more interference in the area), and then have a WRT1900ACv2
running openwrt doing all the real work. And since it is running openwrt
I can install whatever service on it that I need. I used to route through
a linux box 15 years ago, but whyever would I do such a thing today?
One box does AP, switching, routing, PPPoE, DNS, DHCP, etc and nothing
on the network is confused. Nice and simple.

Just to provide an example of what you can possibly do with an OpenWrt router having only 512 MB of RAM. My three-years old Buffalo WXR-1900DHP, with extroot on a 1 TB external USB drive, runs:

- all the usual networking stuff: PPPoE, basic and advanced ipv4 and ipv6 routing, DHCP and DNS (dnsmasq)

- Nginx

- PHP7

- OpenLDAP

- Postfix

- Dovecot + OpenDKIM

- Transmission

- Proftpd

and the box just runs for months until I have to reboot it for upgrade or some other reason.