> From: Mihai Popescu <mih...@gmail.com> > Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2020 20:50:07 +0200 > > Hello, > > Do you think is practical to run RPi 4 as an OpenBSD router, one interface > from the board and one from USB Ethernet adapter? > I try to replace my ISP router, the connection is 300/150 Mbps down/up. It > will be a router with dhcp only, pf active. > If anyone is running this scenario, what usb to ethernet adapter do you > use? Do I need some special measures like extra cooling, etc? > Basically I need a two interface board able to route that amount of > traffic. Do you have another suggestion in this price range, please? > APU is out of the question, I can't afford the price.
The RPi 4 is easy to obtain and has a decent "out-of-the-box" experience, but hardware-wise it is somewhat disappointing. Cooling is an issue and the lack of eMMC means you have to use a micro-SD card or external USB drive for storage. And the RPi 4 does not support the ARM AES crypto instructions which can speed up IPsec with some upcoming diffs. Some interesting alternatives are: - NanoPi R2S Has two Ethernet ports on the board. The 2nd one is is ure(4), so USB though and some folks reported issues with it. That may be a matter of using different firmware (U-Boot) though. Cortex-A53 CPUs are slower than the Cortex-A72 found on the RPi 4. No eMMC and the only USB port is USB-2.0. Only 1GB of memory. - Odroid-N2/N2+ Very well built board with integrated heatsink. Supports eMMC modules for storage and has an RTC. Quite a bit faster than the RPi 4. Slight downside is that the firmware isn't 100% open source (but neither is the BIOS on the APU). Has 4 USB 3.0 ports. - Odroid-C4 Well-built board that comes with a good heatsink. Supports eMMC modules. The Cortex-A55 cores are not much slower than the Cortex-A72's on the RPi 4. No RTC. Has 4 USB 3.0 ports. - RockPro 64 Needs a heatsink or fan. Supports eMMC modules. Has an RTC, but you need to get a battery with the right wires soldered on. Has a PCIe slot which you can use for an NVMe disk or a PCIe network interface (e.g. a cheap re(4)). Only one USB 3.0 port. Cheers, Mark
