publication croisée depuis : https://lemmy.world/post/448925

Hi there, I was looking for combinations of switching hardware and open source switching software. Stratum and Cumulus Linux caught my attention, but these seem to be focussed towards the industry and would likely be very difficult to run in a homelab. I’m not going to touch the likes of Ubiquity, but as of now the only choice seems to be closed-source software from TPLink and/or Cisco. I’m going to try and harden the inside of my network too with ACLs and any other features I find on the switches, and having an open source OS with regular updates would be very nice to have.

Any suggestions? I was trying to find something to run on a MikroTik switch, since I find their L2 OS a bit lacking.

Cheers!

Edit: a kind user mentioned OpenWRT, which I should have looked into more seriously before posting this. I’m going through it right now, any suggestions are welcome!

  • fruitywelsh
    3·
    1 year ago

    Stratum, Cumulus, Vyos, openwrt, and pfsense are all the most router focused options I can think of. You also have options of just using Network Manager (NM) to do static routes, and network bonding, and using FRRouting for more advanced routing options.

    Personally, on the lower level stuff like network bonding and such, I prefer the NM over trying to do the same things on openwrt so far. Just hard to beat Redhat Docs on a lot of things that are more “enterprise” like. I haven’t had any reason to mess with the others, though. My research had Vyos as the more powerful option compared to pfsense, and some feature of cumulus like supporting Multichassis Link Aggregation Groups (MLAG) are really cool, and something I’d like to play with more.

    • MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.worldOP
      2·
      1 year ago

      Thanks for the answer! I am not looking for something too complicated (just some security features in my LAN like ACLs, sticky ports etc). The main focus is to be able to do it with FOSS software. I love your answer, but would I accomplish what you mention in your post? I need to be able to run Linux on a switch: and I have yet to find an affordable switch which will operate with a custom OS.

      I am even considering purchasing a Qotom box and bridging the ports together through software, although I really don’t like that approach (I want a switch with dedicated switching hardware in my homelab, not another router). Haven’t found any solutions yet

      • fruitywelsh
        1·
        1 year ago

        I will say openwrt is great for running on home routers. It’s more specialized for that purpose, being made to fit on the small flashes of some of them.