What network hardware should I get for my homelab?
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Opnsense on basically anything. That's what I'd recommend as a platform, so see if they have recommended hardware for cell network support.
Or if you're okay with commercial products, cradlepoint makes good cell network hardware. But you should still have a separate firewall/router and just use the cradlepoint as a modem.
Yeah. Would be my recommendation, too.
For the size of the lab a Zimba seems a good choice if something new is what OP wants, otherwise a MiniPC. -
I've had the opposite experience with Mikrotik.
I really wanted to like it, but (I say this as a former Cisco instructor) their approach to UI and documentation is terrible (the docs don't tell you what's what, just tell you how to setup a specific config, without explaining what they're doing or why, even worse, they start numbering their eth interfaces from 1 - it took me a while to figure this out).
Worse, it was unstable as hell. I setup one just as a test, with one laptop connected via ethernet. Every couple days I wouldn't be able to even ping the laptop - I'd have to reboot the router, manually, since it had become unresponsive.
This with a simple config (just eth2 is LAN, eth1 is external), and no rules.
It may have been a faulty unit, but as a consumer I can't risk assuming this, especially given the very poor docs and clumsy UI/config approach - it all indicates this is a very immature product, definitely not something I'd recommend to a newbie.
I hope they can really improve - the form factor is excellent, the price point is unbeatable, the capabilites of the hardware are extensive.
I somewhat agree on your comment about documentation and UI (altough once you get used to it, it's manageable) but just to add with my experience on these things: for me they've been rock solid. I've used them both at home and professionally (mostly on small-ish networks) for at least 10 years and they just seem to run just fine.
Currently my home router is RB4011iGS+ and there's been absolutely no problems with it in the 4-5 years it's been on my network. I'm not saying all their models are as reliable and there's not that many models I've had my hands on, but my experience with them has so far been pretty good.
