Hello,

I first post this thread to r/networking

I have a mici pc with multiple nic like this one : multiple ethernet Mini PC

I used to install proxmox on it and use it as router. But now, I have a bigger server for my virtualisation. I want this mini pc to become just a vlan aware switch. I want to be able to change its configuration and vlan attribution with a simple clic.

I don’t need firewall for this device.

What OS would you advice me to use ?

Thanks for your help !

  • Darkextratoasty@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    OPNsense will do what you want, although it’s probably overkill in this case. Also keep in mind that any switching it does will be purely software, so it might struggle to push heavy traffic through, especially if you add rules and vlans and such. Openwrt is more lightweight and should also work, or you could just install a general Linux OS like Ubuntu or debian and use iptables to route stuff. The better option though is to just get a proper switch, since those have hardware switching.

  • zanfar@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    None.

    It’s exceedingly unlikely that ANY general-use network OS will recognize or even run on it. Even if it did, as it lacks actual switching hardware, it would make a very poor switch.

    As for “change its … VLAN [configuration] with a simple click” that’s almost certainly an XY problem.

    • Darkextratoasty@alien.topBEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Most of these boxes are just Celeron or Intel i3 based computers with a few extra NICs, they’ll run pretty much anything just fine. They don’t have actual switching hardware, but they’ve got enough CPU juice to push gigabit connections with a few simple rules/filters. I have an n5105 based one with six i226 NICs, with a simple bridge it can throughput close to 2.5gbps in iperf.