[TriLUG] Router Recommendations

[Igor Partola via TriLUG]

Gigabit *routing* or gigabit *switching*? There is a difference between the
two. Switching happens mostly in hardware, and as far as I know shouldn't
be affected by which firmware you run. Switching is simple and happens only
inside your LAN (unless you run multiple subnets on your LAN, but most
people don't).

Routing is much more complicated/computation heavy. It is what's going on
when you actually go outside of your LAN. The router you buy, if it
advertises gigabit *routing*, will likely do it with a closed binary blob
running routing in a proprietary hardware module.

LEDE/OpenWRT can't do the same, so it will do routing in software inside
the Linux kernel, just like it would if you used your laptop, a Raspberry
Pi, etc. as your router. This is going to be CPU-bound as you push how many
packets you process. Add NAT to it, and it slows it down a little more. Add
firewall rules, and it slows down a little more.

So yes, just having a gigabit port doesn't mean you get gigabit routing.
Hell, you likely don't get gigabit switching either, but you can at least
get close to it when going over just your LAN. Processor speed matters. If
you want to get what it says on the package, go with a router that comes
with supported firmware from the manufacturer. Ubiquiti has the EdgeRouter
which I hear is pretty decent. But unless you have fiber to your house, 200
Mbps routing is not going to be your bottleneck.

Igor