DIY Gaming Router - Untangle Your Network!

[@BattleNonSense]

► Thumbnail Credits: twitter.com/Shadow6ix ► Links: ➜ Unifi Setup Guide: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pV7KY4Nph51nmtk ➜ openwrt.org/ ➜ unifi-sdn.ui.com/ ➜ www.untangle.com ➜ www.dslreports.com/speedtest ➜ www.zotac.com/us/product/mini_pcs/ci327-nano

[@bobhumplick4213]

a used r6220 from netgear on ebay for 25 dollars paired with openwrt is what i use. i love it. i think it would only be good for 200 or so. for more i would go x86. maybe on an old optiplex dell with a t model intel cpu. the t models are 35 watt tdp and usually sell for a bit less. 50 bux plus a 20 dollar intel nic and youre ready to go. good for 1000mps or more. there are arm based routers that will handle 1000mbps i would think, even with traffic shaping on. or you can just shape upstream traffic as thats where most of the bottlenekc will be. you can use a much weaker router that way

[@AsimKantarevic87]

@@bobhumplick4213 Can you translate all this to simpler terms with potentially links for any and all products you mention? Also what are your thoughts if any on DumaOS vs OpenWRT? Thank you

[@bobhumplick4213]

@@AsimKantarevic87 here is where you get the software for the router openwrt.org/toh/netgear/netgear_r6220 here is a link to ebay or the routers www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_nkw=r6220+netgear&_sacat=0&_sop=15 here is the main page for openwrt openwrt.org/start basically you have to flash the openwrt software onto the router. youll have to research this. there are videos on the net. your current router may be supported so look up its model name follow by openwrt on google. YOU MUST MAKE SURE WHICH VERSION OF EACH ROUTER YOU HAVE (V1 V2 V1.5 ETC). the net gear i mentioned is a dual core that you can usually find for 25 or less new. and it should handle connections of 200 or less. once you have the openwrt software installed you need to research an app that works with it called sqm. the hard part is getting openwrt installed. once you have it installed go to the software? tab in the router login and then click update list. then go to the L section and find luci-app.sqm and install it. then find the sqm tab (its under network i think) . once oyu have sqm installed and you find the sqm tab you need to input your download and upload speeds (download is ingress and upload is egress) but only input about 85-95% of your rated speed. sqm needs a bit of a margin of error to play with. now on a pc run this in a command promt ping www.google.com -t that will ping gooogle continously unitl you close the window. the start a couple other downloads on other machines (not the one you are using). if the ping doesnt change then you are probalby done. if it does then you need to lower the ingress (and hit apply) in the sqm section until the ping doesnt change. you will lose some of your connections top end speed. for instance i have a 35 meg connection and i only get 22 megs. but i can have 3 games going on 3 machines, a netflix video and a couple downloads and i never get any ping spikes or anything. this will take some research on your part. or you can buy routers with openwrt built in. i might try to do a video on it sometime if i get time. you can add me to your friends list on steam if you hoave it. same name on steam as on here

[@bobhumplick4213]

@@AsimKantarevic87 if you are wantning directions for more than 200 meg on an x86 machine then im sorry thats more than i can do here. thats a bit more work for the machines just search optiplex i5 or i7 and anything you find that is 2nd gen or newer and is 50 bux or less will work. can make good budget gamign machines from these. also you might have to buy a couple intel nics but they are cheap online

[@bobhumplick4213]

@@AsimKantarevic87 havent used dumaos but if you want something simple, with thousands of software packages, that works on cheap router then openwrt is awesome. if it doesnt fill all your needs then its not for you. but it works veyr well for my needs

[@MrTinyTit]

I can't be the only one who subscribes and watches these videos because they're well-researched and high quality, while not understanding one second of Techno networking jargon "DIY Gaming router? Sounds cool" *Watches 3 min* "I have a headache, I'm just gonna play games on my stock bullshit"

[@BillCClinton]

I had an old Optiplex 780 laying around and after watching your video decided to give it a shot. My current setup was an ASUS router running a form of DDWRT that was about 8 years old with no updates anymore. I tested with DSL support and received B-C-B pretty much each time. Just finished the Untangled build on the Optiplex.....moved everything over to it and setup QOS. DSL reports went to A+ A+ A+ once I set the IP of my gaming computer to very high. I will still probably suck at BF5 but maybe now I won't get killed 15 seconds after I move behind the wall :)

[@eldergeektromeo9868]

Thanks, Chris! Tried as I might I could not get Untangle to install sucessfully on my repurposed i5-6500/mombo combo, so for my 200/20 internet connection, I just decided to upgrade my Ubiquiti ER lite, to the ER-4. Wow...what a difference. A+ rating through DSL reports, with ZERO buffer bloat: 185-190 down/ 18-19 up ( with QoS/Smartque enabled). Very satisfied, but a bit disappointed I couldnt check out Untangle....perhaps when I repurpose my oldest PC. Thanks again for your tireless research, and suggestions/tutorials

[@AtunDesenfrenado]

it's 2:22 AM, I was going to sleep! damn you.

[@IkxGP]

3:27AM

[@Shaman4o66]

2:37 AM >.

[@techlm76]

2:36 AM

[@johannesugb]

Thank you for your invaluable content!

[@christian571]

Can we get an update on this? Extremely interesting I'd love to see other games/services. For example, I actually still have issues with UPNP on Untangle and Xbox. Does anyone else get strict/moderate frequently with this? Thinking of downgrading to OpenWRT even though I love the Untangle features.

[@goukigod]

Always quality advice. Nice one!

[@odlanyermuller4849]

I'm a mikrotik user for everything that involves network traffic, but I have to say that the platform of this application is quite friendly and easy to use, thanks for the video

[@KaraAshleyThrace]

Mikrotik is very viable from a cost standpoint but the learning curve is like climbing mount everest and they tend to be a bit slower fixing exploits.

[@odlanyermuller4849]

@@KaraAshleyThrace You are correct, there is no person in this field that dominates all areas to the maximum that are present for mikrotik, but you can specialize in your points of interest. And you are also right that there are security problems (but let's say that the same life is a big problem that we solve every day from the begining, so in a certain way we all are specialists solving problems) that are not always solved very quickly by this company, but if you spend a little time securing your router, you have nothing to worry about, for example: never use the default configuration, change your ports and close services that you do not use, create filter rules in the firewall, program a script based on events that notify you by email of certain events such as intrusion attempts, etc.

[@odlanyermuller4849]

I forget the most important, after that you can do magic :)

[@icenode]

I tried a Mikrotik, they're very capable and affordable but even opening ports is too complicated for non-expert users IMO.

[@odlanyermuller4849]

@@icenode It's true, but fortunately there is a lot of information about the first basic configurations to start and in the mikrotik wiki there is quite detailed documentation with situations of use and examples, also you can always ask for help in the forum where more than one person will help you.

[@isamaro_j]

About to build an Untangle router in the next few days because of your video. Thank you very much for this information!

[@GoodGuysGaming]

Full disclosure right up front. Nicely done, Chris!

[@BattleNonSense]

Thanks! But it's kind of sad that we live in times where you have to tell people that your video was not sponsored. :-/

[@GoodGuysGaming]

@@BattleNonSense Absolutely, reputation is worth far more than anything else :) If you ever make it to Dublin, I'm gonna buy you a pint.

[@Varstahl]

*Untangle* is one of the first firewalls I've tried after being suggested a lot. It was nice and all, until I found a map of my LAN online, on their servers. I couldn't nope out of there fast enough, deleted my account immediately along with the Untangle install, never looked back. Through virtual appliances I'm also testing Sophos, pfSense and OpenWRT. *OpenWRT* has Cake, which is far superior to FQ_Codel, and network-wise is performing the best, although I hate its interface. It has installable applications though to increase functionality, which is nice. *pfSense* is also pretty neat but it's limited to FQ_Codel afaik. Management is superior and makes more sense than OpenWRT's interface, but quite literally no cake. *Sophos UTM* is also one of my favorites. As a unified threat management it's great, rule setup is a bit more complex, but for home users it's pretty neat. At the moment there's no clear winner, I've been swapping them on and off for a while now, and currently OpenWRT is working fine, I'd still love to get Sophos+Cake though, although I don't even know if it's possible. I generally don't use UPnP, so I really can't tell if some of them have problems, I prefer manual port mapping.

[@mikejames8412]

Go to config>system>support and uncheck "connect to command center" to disable your info going to their servers.

[@benjaminthe1st]

How did you come across your map online? not asking for a URL, but asking as I have one deployed and want to vet that this is not exposed.

[@Soul_in_Gun]

i'd like to add prometheus | padawan project up in list - it's pretty consumer-faced, based on sources of Asus firmware and ported to many other routers. For me it handles A+ bufferbloat on Mi-WiFi 3G under 200mbps and totally gets 1gbps+ on 5ghz wifi, so it's pretty neat, even though it limited to certain models of consumer routers. As a guy with a home server infrastructure with high availability demands - totally confident in that firmware and it is awesome if built properly.

[@BattleNonSense]

You did not disable "connect to command center" - the central management hub you can access on their website which also allows remote access to your appliance. 🙄

[@dhkatz_]

You could have taken 5 seconds to research the Command Center connection but instead you spread fear mongering crap in an otherwise good comment section.

[@notmyname5449]

Aww, 50€ a year for a feature I need twice a week isn't that good of a deal as I expected. Too bad thank you for doing the research.

[@PeanutFox]

I took a similar approach using the same hardware about 2 years ago (PFsense). The Ci327 is a good piece of hardware, but I found that either the software support for the Realtek NICs wasn't amazing, or the chips themselves couldn't handle the amount of packets I was moving through them. I have a home server and move a fair amount of data through my router, and about ever few weeks I'd end up having to SSH into the box and tell it to restart as it would start dropping packets. Outside of that it worked perfectly fine. I ended up replacing the Zotac box after about a year with a Compulab Fitlet 2, since it had duel Gigabit Intel NICs, and the platform could be expanded out another 4 I believe. Both of them cost about the same if you're going for the bare bones options, but the Fitlet 2 has a slightly better SoC and in my application I found to be much more reliable for networking. The Zotac is a great piece of hardware. I love that little box, I've got it running Manjaro Linux, and it's doing some data recovery for me right now. However, for dedicated networking use, Fitlet 2 all the way. If only for the much better Intel i211 NICs. I haven't looked at Untangle before. Awesome video! Thanks!!

[@sifutg]

Untangle > pfSense, in addition to offering fq_codel, it offers the best parental control money can buy, sites often use HTTPS which routerOS solutions like OpenWRT/DD-WRT cannot see, their only solution is OpenDNS, a poor way to achieve blocking of Facebook/KZbin, whereas Untangle either can peer directly into SSL or use signatures to identify encrypted traffic, therefore parental control is as simple as clicking the user and denying Facebook/KZbin, no getting around it via VPN either, then you got other features like data quotas similar to Gargoyle, seriously guys Untangle is worth every penny, the only solution to come close to it is pfSense, which requires major configuration.

[@DiceAir]

I'm using untangle for like 10 years now in the office and it works great. used it at home but bought an asus router that I'm not 100% happy with and would rather like to use an untangle server at home with a home license.

[@REXP5421]

Absolutely Chris, more UniFi please!

[@nicosanchez1980]

Aaaaaaand the video hits my main page the day after I finish setting up my DIY pfSense router.

[@Pitbull2k]

You can do codel on pfsense.

[@nicosanchez1980]

@@Pitbull2k Of course! It's already up and running :) Untangle seems a bit easier to setup anyway

[@jaydale1]

It would be nice to do an analysis on Treyarch's server infrastructure. I've never seen a gaming infrastructure that is so reliant on ports being forwarded and NAT types filtering lobbies as much as Black Ops 4 does. There are so many players, especially on PC, that have issues finding lobbies when their NAT types are Strict or Moderate, but when they change to Open by forwarding the appropriate ports, they find lobbies with no issue.

[@kamil950]

Ubiquiti UniFi Dream Machine (UDM) and Ubiquiti UniFi Dream Machine Pro (UDM-PRO) also have Smart Queue/FQ_Codel support and has a lot of more power than EdgeRouter X (ERX) or ER4 if I'm not mistaken. So it can handle more downlad and upload speed. But I'm not sure if you really need or how much will help Smart Queue/SQM/FQ_Codel or Cake in home if you have very fast download and upload speed.

[@Felix-ve9hs]

I use the Ubiquiti EdgeRouterX and with my 100MBit/s Download / 40MBit/s Upload Internet Connection and even with my Brother maxing it out i don't really get any Ping Spikes at all - and I also use an Ubiquiti UAP AC Lite as Access Point :)

[@OmerTheGreatOne]

Thats exactly my setup as well. I have 175 optical so i limited mine to 125 up and down. So happy with it. Setup and forget it.

[@shannon1872]

4 months later, are you still using untangled ? Still like it ?

[@JasonLeaman]

Ive been running it 9 years ! I swear by it, and for 50$ a year worth every cent. The box the OP used in the video is exactly what i have sold many of these units running untangle on with ! Throw in a little ssd 8 gigs ram and POOF Stable !!

[@phant0mdummy]

@@JasonLeaman what.

[@JasonLeaman]

@@phant0mdummy ? What what? Untangle is awesome !!

[@vacinden]

Haha so true. Big ping spikes when my wife's iphone connects to wifi and starts to sync pictures with iCloud.

[@Eledore]

While i love the Zbox nano. I have used about 12 of the CI323 as routers, and of those 12 within two years, 7 broke and 3 years later i have not one remaining as router, only the one's used as desktop. They overheat with no sensor warnings. The celeron had a habbit of downclocking itself to stock during heavy usage, meaning any VPN connections in use where unreliable. And lastly USB boot worked but somewhere along the uptime the usb controler falls asleep, nice for when you have auto updates enabled.. There might have been changes and the 327 may work great these days. But for managing my internet today, i would rather have something more rebust and servicable..

[@JasonLeaman]

Good video, One tip, if you disable the wifi when you are doing the network setup, it won't ask for any wifi setup information :)

[@nandoedwin1]

What about MikroTik Routers, their RouterOS has a lot of features that are available in high end routers used by ISPs but also in SOHO routers for a fair price, I think the most noticeable difference between license levels are that some features are limitede to a certain amount of users but beyond that its the hardware you are paying for.

[@puhairsoft]

yup. pfSense 2.4.4 with fq_codel also does the job. R6S, pubg, etc on a tv cable. magicu!

[@jettangeles2707]

I’d still prefer openwrt and cake route. I think that’s just simpler.

[@BattleNonSense]

As I said in the video, it is a viable alternative. But even with CAKE, steam (and some other applications/launchers) still cause ping spikes/lat var due to creating that many sessions for each download. Only way around that is to either limit the bandwidth steam is allowed to use, or do bandwidth control on the router.

[@alexpop3883]

I don 't understand what ÇAKE is.

[@icenode]

If you want to google it, search for "sch_cake" so you don't just get baking links!

[@thekurasai]

@@BattleNonSense You can actually do per host fairness through OpenWRT, which eliminates this issue. You can use the following instructions: To enable Per-Host Isolation Add the following to the “Advanced option strings” (in the Interfaces → SQM-QoS page; Queue Discipline tab, look for the Dangerous Configuration options): For queueing disciplines handling incoming packets from the internet (internet-ingress): nat dual-dsthost For queueing disciplines handling outgoing packets to the internet (internet-egress): nat dual-srchost

[@dasphantom0439]

I use my Unraid Server with a Opensense VM with a Network card pass through. It works really good for me.

[@snowdaysrule]

Can't emphasize enough how careful you need to be when attempting to flash your router with dd-wrt / openwrt. The firmware binaries are hardware version specific so make damn sure you're flashing with the correct firmware/hardware pair. And even if you do everything right you can still end up bricking your hardware. Fortunately most scenarios are recoverable, but you typically must open up your router (voiding the warranty) and recover via uart or jtag flashing which requires soldering external hardware to the correct headers on the motherboard and getting functional firmware back on the router. But if you understand the risks and are prepared to deal with the consequences by all means flash your router as the features provided by the 3rd party firmwares are truly awesome.

[@Stoney_Eagle]

Yup I bricked my linksys router first try 😂 I'll stick to pfsense 😉

[@CataclysmZA]

For those of you with TP-Link routers, this comment still applies. However, it is typical of TP-Link routers to be able to install OpenWRT just like any other TP-Link update, and you can swap back to the official firmware if you want.

[@rock-steady-yeti]

This is why you should buy a router that supports WRT. Sometimes cheaper routers will support WRT but the CPU and Ram can handle any of the cool features.

[@Stoney_Eagle]

@@rock-steady-yeti hahaha you think mine didn't, it was 9 years ago tho so there where no awesome features yet 😂😂

[@MeatVision]

BF4 thumbnail brought me here

[@eliotohme1109]

I was just giving up hope on using my old pc as a router THANK YOU

[@trevordoeseverything219]

what an amazing video, i am wanting to install this on an HP eleite desk 800 then connect a switch and wireless AP's.

[@katodevon]

Wonderful video - hoping I could get your thoughts on Untangle vs pfSense. Installed on a PC with an 4000 series i5 quad. Looking purely to shape traffic and combat bufferbloat while serving Plex videos to family and playing games. I have a 1000/40 connection, and have Plex set to use 32mbps of upstream bandwidth. Got the computer 100% ready to go, just need to select the routing software.

[@larryjohnson150]

This may a dumb question but do ping spikes only happen if your PC is on WiFi? I only ask because mine doesn’t have WiFi so it’s plugged directly into the router.

[@K7L3-93]

If you are experiencing bufferbloat then even on an Ethernet connection you will see ping spikes. I'm directly connected to my router on a 1gb port, with 50/10mb internet connection and I get frequent ping spikes up to 150ms even on local game servers such as London. It's very very annoying.

[@leonawroth2516]

Nope, ping spikes happen to all hardware which is connected to the router, no matter if via wifi or cable.

[@BattleNonSense]

those ping spikes that I've talked about here are a result of bufferbloat, or "congestion". this happens when your router does not prioritize data of realtime applications such as online games. these can then get delayed when other applications consume your entire up/downstream bandwitdh while you are gaming. It is like a traffic jam inside your router where the data of the online game you play gets delayed at that results in increase latency.

[@jorry1992]

Please take a look at gargoyle, its a free open source open-wrt derivative focused on the soho market with adaptive qos(so it even works if your isps line drops from 50 mbps to 25 mbps). 50 bucks a year just for qos is waay to much

[@willis936]

Beyond OpenWRT: pfSense and opensense This gets to quickly be a widening hole in one's pocket. I settled an ER-4 for a 1000/40 internet connection. I will likely leave SQM off and do maximal hardware offloading. Edit: Actually I just learned that edgeos supports assymetric SQM, so I can enable it on upload only and squash both bufferbloat and maintain throughput without blowing the budget.

[@transparenthuman]

I'm real close to building my own router, and your videos scared me off of my original plan to use PFsense. Now it's a tossup between Untangled, or trying to get cake working with openwrt x86.

[@peterpaniccc]

Can you reach similar results concerning bufferbloat using one of these ubiquity routers? My connection is just a 100 MBit so the edge router x would suffice BTW: Great video... Again! Thank you so much!

[@BattleNonSense]

With the ERX you will get an "A+" or at least "A" Bufferbloat rating, however the EdgeRouter does not have anything to deal with applications like steam. So these can still cause latency or latency variation issues - these are much less severe than without Smart Queue though.

[@Nizkus]

What kind of hardware would one need for 1000/1000 connection?

[@KaraAshleyThrace]

The level of hardware you would need would be generally not cost effective. if you are somehow flooding a full gig symmetrical connection that you are getting bad bufferbloat then you prob have something crazy going on. Bandwidth shaping at gigabit plus enters the Enterprise realm. You can likely manage your Lan much more effectively on a micro-scale. restricting certain apps. Google drive and onedrive both have upload filters. no handful of wifi devices will be able to flood your 1gb/1gb connection just based on wifi limits. If you are getting lag in games with a gig/gig connection then something else is very likely the problem. This could be your geographical location to the servers, bad hardware from your ISP, a basic router simply not capable of handling a gig/gig connection. If you spent under $100 on your router it prob can't handle your gig/gig. Not always true but possible. If simply from a pps standpoint of not being able to move enough packets fast enough.

[@jasongaunt]

Even though I respect Kara's opinion and there's a lot of truth to what they say, I'm not sure I completely agree with all of it. Whereas bandwidth shaping at gig traffic levels is not usually achievable with SOHO (Small Office / Home Office) off-the-shelf routers, a fairly recent multi-core x86 / x64 and good NICs (read; Intel) would suffice however something else that people don't factor in is the power requirements too. What you're gonna have to decide on is the following; Do you want cheap-to-buy or cheap-to-run? You can get old server motherboards (SuperMicro X8 series for example) for filthy cheap on eBay these days with dual (or often more) Intel NICs and oodles of processing power to cope with gig, however due to their age, they will often use more than 50-60 watts continuous power even at idle. Depending on your electricity price, this can cost circa £6 / 7€ / $8 per month to run. Another thing to consider is the number of clients, if your router only has to manage less than 20 devices then lower spec hardware can be utilised. 100+ devices and that definitely pushes you further into beefier CPU requirements. Just remember that it's CPU and NIC's that'll be your bottleneck, not RAM. Most home environments won't need more than 2-4 GB of RAM. My home LAN with circa 20-30 clients has an OpenWRT router with 4 GB of RAM and it's only using 3% of system RAM as of this post. YMMV.

[@BattleNonSense]

That's a great question. Sadly I can't find any hardware recommendations for 1Gbps connections. Would love to provide an answer but such speeds are not even available here. I have fiber, but the best I can get is 300down 35up and that costs 65€ per month..... :O

[@daikar12]

Wouldn't you be able to test this by just transferring large files over the LAN connection? On the Edgerouter you can just change the interface you want the SQM to apply to.

[@KaraAshleyThrace]

@Tecnologia I asked a similar question about a year ago on ubiquiti forums and was told by a forum user to look at router ratings for IPSEC. That rating would be roughly comparable the requirements of bandwidth shaping. On the Ubiquiti line that's a $1800 router the Infinity which isn't cost feasible. There's a local WISP where I live and I talked to one of their engineers and they use mostly Microtik on their backend and said to look at the test results for IPSEC worst/best case scenarios to get an idea. That's generally one of their Cloud Routers $500-1000 range. You could use a PC as a router but generally you would need a Xeon based system for it to be remotely efficient running Linux. You can get used Xeon systems very inexpensive but as mentioned your power bill will take a big hit. To be clear I am no expert on this stuff, I could be completely wrong on some of this and prob am.

[@ZhangMaza]

IPFire is the one I used and set up in my Office :)

[@gregory_wainer]

What's your thought on MikroTik routers?

[@bassboygilo]

Hi, installed Untangle on a laptop trough vmare workstation, connected trough my home router, tried the direct connection PPPOE , but doesn't work . When I get to the interface identifier tab I get both internal and external connected alltough there is no cable connected, WI Fi is off. Anyway I procedeed and got it connected to internet, I want to connect another PC to the Untangle laptop router trough a USB network adapter but can't figure it out what or how to do it. thanks

[@Freezera86]

I'm using the rog areion 10gbit lan with the nighthawk sx10 switch. And lag spikes are none existing.

[@BattleNonSense]

Your LAN hardware is pretty much irrelevant (unless you use WiFi/powerline for gaming - which is a terrible idea). This is about your router and how it handles in/outbound traffic. Run the speedtest on dslreports.com to find out how well your router handles data of realtime applications (aka. bufferbloat)

[@tylerb3797]

How would i go about installing Untangle onto my current PC running pfsense? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks and great video as always 😁

[@noel3munoz]

What about users that have Gigabit internet connections up and down? Do we have options that wont limit our max download and upload speeds?

[@iampyron22]

Old HP machine with a i3/i5 4-8gb ram and a ssd will pass that easy with all filtering on (like an ex gov hp elite desk)

[@AsimKantarevic87]

Current setup: Modem: TP Link and Router: R1 router with DumaOS. I have a question that i'm not sure if it was asked already. Instead of buying the Mini PC or anything new. May I just buy the license for Untangled and install it onto my current PC set it up and use it? If i don't use STEAM but my girlfriend uses Netflix apps etc can i still benefit from Untangled!? Hope someone can answer these for me.

[@chrismallia29]

You can install Untangle on any PC that can run Linux

[@psydemekum]

Ich werde für mein LAN Upgrade auf 10Gbit auf den Mikrotik CRS305-1G-4S+IN with four SFP+ ports, for up to 10 Gbit per port Switch - $149.00 setzen, zusammen mit dem Router RB2011UiAS-2HnD-IN, der hat sogar ein LCD Touchscreen und das für ca 120.- Haben ne eigne Router OS Software, man kann alles selber konfigurieren : )

[@onetrueone]

Awh man thought this was “DIY glitter slime”

[@galaxy-lf5ek]

😂

[@ET-bn8mw]

can you make a tutorial on how to install openwrt on virtual machine ??? Thanks a lot in advance

[@kuhantilope8970]

Can you pls make a follow-up video to Ironsight? They said they improved the netcode and all, but it still feels the same 🤔

[@BattleNonSense]

Yup, that's the next video I have planned to do. Just need to sort out a few hardware issues on my Test PC first. O.o

[@kuhantilope8970]

@@BattleNonSenseBester Mann! :D

[@wile123456]

So what kind of pc do you need? Can you build your own? A motherboard with 2 ethernet ports is a must? How much cpu power would be needed?

[@jasongaunt]

As x86 / x64 chips are SIGNIFICANTLY faster than most chipsets in off-the-shelf routers (ARM etc), you don't need as much CPU power as you'd think; I have an 13-year-old HP Compaq NC4400 with an Intel T7200 CPU and that works fine for my 500 mbit connection running OpenWRT x64. If anything, it's bored. Motherboards with 2 ethernet ports are not essential, but it's likely you need two, one for your ISP, another for your LAN. You can usually add secondary Ethernet ports via PCI / PCI-e / USB / PCMCIA / ExpressCard methods, just check they are supported by both your hardware and proposed software. I personally use a PCMCIA Gigabit Ethernet card on the NC4400, OpenWRT required me to install a bunch of packages for it to work (CARDBUS / PCMCIA support, Realtek Ethernet drivers etc) but it's been stable since I set it up 2 weeks ago. Chris's previous video actually gave me the inspiration to try it as pfSense + Warframe on 2 Xboxes = pain. I've not regretted moving to OpenWRT :)

[@RaidSoft]

Just wanted to add that while an old PC would likely be plenty powerful to act as a router, it's also very likely it's very inefficient old hardware that will use quite a bit more electricity to run 24/7 (plus likely to take up more space and be louder) so while it most definitely is an option it might not be the best one for everyone's use case.

[@BattleNonSense]

1. it needs 2 network interfaces (could be onboard or PCI-E, never use USB network interfaced) 2. it has to be able to run Debian 9 3. has to provide a "legacy" option for the BIOS mode (at least based on my experience) In therms of how much CPU power it needs, that depends on your bandwidth. Could not find any recommendations when it comes to that.

[@formerlycringe]

Hey, I got a question. I know the Linksys WRT32X is good, but would getting a Linksys WRTAC3200 with DD-WRT do the same thing, just not as cool looking?

[@PatMoffat]

Are you still using Untangle Chris? I got it set up and running last night and am thus far pretty happy with it. Any chance you're doing any further guides / reviews of it?

[@iridiumflare]

What really helped with my buffer bloat is having faster internet :D

[@BattleNonSense]

that does not fix the issue. bufferbloat is just another word for congestion - a "traffic jam" inside your router. what faster internet does is help against burst, like small file transfers or buffering of video streaming. where faster internet does not help at all are large file transfers as the packets of realtime applications still get delayed inside the router unless it is A/SQM capable.

[@YK-ll4wt]

More of these vidz please, thanks

[@vitamincplusplus]

In our country in Austria we only have the "Hybrid-LTE/DSL" option with channel bonding available... Is there a way I can fix my bufferbloat problems? Maybe chaining another router in front of my Hybrid router and use that one as my main router? (DMZ)

[@YazhShah]

What is the difference between FQ_CODEL and PIE, these are the options i have on my router.

[@MehlstaubtheCat]

Hi Chris, plz can you test cFosSpeed maybe!

[@KALTBLUTWOLF1]

Why are Realtek network chips so bad?

[@michaelwerner5049]

www.reddit.com/r/homelab/comments/8x3hto/intel_vs_realtek_nics/? I guess it's that Intel chips have more bandwidth and "support"

[@BattleNonSense]

@@michaelwerner5049 on a client PC it makes 0 difference if you use intel or realtek. but on a server, NAS or router it can make a very big difference as these are hit with much more traffic / packets per second. In many cases it is down to the quality of the drivers, but intel nic's also have other hardware tricks and optimizations up their sleeves which is why admins prefer these over realtek due to superior performance and reliability. Again, in a home network it does not matter!

[@Phil4o2]

Do you think a unmanaged ~15€ DLINK Switch would work well for home use? What do you use behind the Zotac?

[@MikeG4936]

How much bandwidth can a typical Core i5 Untangle box push compared to an EdgeRouter X with QoS enabled (~100Mbps)?

[@theflyerpr40d]

What would be the max speed using the QoS on a nighthawk X4S and Zyxel Armor z2?

[@disieh]

If I'm using already OpenWRT with SQM, are the upsides of using Untangle basically that you run it with beefier PC hardware and its nicer to use? The automatic updates sounds really significant upside though. Updating OpenWRT firmware is probably the most nerve-racking thing a man can do.

[@BattleNonSense]

Updates are a no-brainer in Untangle, there is also an app that automatically creates backups of your configuration and stores these on you google drive account. But the biggest pro's (for me at least) of Untangle are Bandwidth Control and WebFilter (not sure if you can do that on OpenWRT). If you don't need any of the above then you can get high traffic shaping performance from OpenWRT on x86 hardware or on an APU2 board from PC Engines - where updates "should" be less nerve wrecking i think than on an off the shelf router. :)

[@MikaelKKarlsson]

Not for me but still fascinating enough!

[@Targetlockon]

non-gaming routers vs gaming routers? Netgear R7000 vs XR500?

[@repeatrepeatrepeat]

I am not an expert so correct me if i am wrong but this replaces your router, right? Also, how would you add a ethernet port to a PC which only has a single one?

[@BattleNonSense]

Basically, yes, this replaces your router. But If your ISP gave you a device which is "Modem & Router" in one, then you still need their device. Ideally you/they should switch it into "modem" mode so that it only acts as a modem, but many ISP's don't do that. You can add more network interfaces to a PC by installing a PCI-E card. You just need to get one that is supported by the firewall you intend to run on that PC.

[@Stoney_Eagle]

Pfsense will also do this great. I needed a fix for my upload buffer bloat, but now I got an A+ rating on all. My isp's router is such a piece of shit that it crashes every other month and can't handle gigabit wan traffic, with my pfsense box I have it running for a whole year without rebooting or any issues. I call that a huge win!

[@BattleNonSense]

PfSense fails at UPnP as you can see in the video that I did a while again. The issue is that netgate doesnt care about UPnP - their UPnP implementation does not forward ports which is why you have to go down the StaticPort route, which breaks playing the same (UPnP dependent) game on more than 1 client (Warframe, Destiny, ....). Can't comment on PfSense's ability to deal with bad applications like Steam which use a ludicrous amount of sessions.

[@Stoney_Eagle]

@@BattleNonSense I play on PS4 and I have setup a 1:1 firewall rule to it and it works fine for me tho. I can livestream, have active users on my website and download and upload torrents without noticing any lag or delay in my game. I even have my friends pc encode videos directly over SCP while doing the same thing with my pc and server and still it doesn't budge. I'm sorry but I do recommend pfsense, but you need good hardware with Intel NIC's. The only bottleneck I have is my vault with its limited IOPS.

[@BattleNonSense]

@@Stoney_Eagle The issue shows when you try and play i.e. Warframe on 2 Playstation 4's or 2 PC's at the same time. In literally any other router you enable UPnP and you are done. Not in PfSense/OPNsense. I went into more detail in the related video. Bottomline is that due to UPnP in PfSense/OPNsense not opening the ports, I can't recommend it for home use as a "setup and forget solution". I don't say that it is a bad product! You just have to be aware of its limitations and know if they will affect you - I can't broadly recommend it for home use because of said UPnP limitations.

[@Stoney_Eagle]

@@BattleNonSense Having 2 Ps4's is indeed dramatic, even for many ISP routers. You have a point but I need the power that pfsense gives me.

[@tlita93]

I'm thinking on buying some descent budget router, specifically Xiaomi Mi router 3g, since my 15€ Asus has terrible QoS. I need to be able to set minimum of 10/3Mbps for my TV, cable app(EON) needs at least 7Mbps, otherwise the it will stutter really badly. Mi router 3g has MiOS which is actually based on OpenWRT. However, I can't seem to find any test for the actual quality of QoS.. It has great dual band WiFi range and gigabit ports, as well as dual core CPU, 256MB of DDR3 1200 RAM all that seems great, but QoS is the most important for me. Cheers

[@sspeedy43]

Loved the video! How did you correctly spec your hardware? Having trouble finding what I need for my 1gb connection

[@BattleNonSense]

Sadly I could not find any info on recommended hardware for 1Gbps :(

[@Siaomi24]

the price of one mini pc zotac + annual home license untangle, is equivalent to one piece of mikrotik routerboard, or more, depends on which model you purchase. But why dont and have you tried to use mikrotik firewall? as this firewall also has the ability to shape queue as well.

[@iampyron22]

Most people cant understand microtik

[@neon8270]

WOWE Solid work!

[@GoodGuysGaming]

The Zotac box is nice but in theory could I use any spare PC? I'd need to add a second network card?

[@BattleNonSense]

Yes you can! But that will be bulkier and much less power efficient.

[@GoodGuysGaming]

@@BattleNonSense Thanks, Chris. Helpful as always :)

[@KaraAshleyThrace]

Just a brief comment. Your comparsion early on between the Ubiquiti routers I feel was not quite accurate. The ER-3 and ER-X are very low end options. The ER-4 is a very different animal. ER-3 is dual core 500mhz (MIPS64), ER-X Dual -core 880mhz (MIPS1004Kc) ER-X has some quirks due to its very low end hardware. It is not directly comparable due to how EdgeOS works on it. I have an ER-X and ER-4, The ER-4 has a Quad Core 1Ghz MIPS64 Router. Of all the Ubiquiti routers it is basically their 2nd most powerful in terms of pps (packets per second). Only the Edgerouter infinity (a $1800 router). Has a higher rating (Routing capacity not switch capacity). ER-4 sells $175-190 USD. I have a 940/40 cable internet. With smart-queue enabled and very heavy loading of 6 computers I can still Maintain either A+ Bloat rating at 450mb or A Rating at 650mb. Effectively undetectable in game play. Additionally there are other methods of bandwidth control which have a higher learning curve that have almost no effect on max speed. Using hard limits. That said using Untangle (with appropriate hardware) is an ideal solution however the learning curve is a bit steeper than you portray mainly due to hardware used to run Untangle and the myriad ISP configurations.

[@BattleNonSense]

The throughput values I showed for the ERX are based on *real life installations* I did over the past few years. There are cases where you can get more throughput with SQ enabled, but the values I provided are what you can expect to get at least. When you read the EdgeOS manual, the estimated throughput values are highly unrealistic - at least based on my experience.

[@KaraAshleyThrace]

@@BattleNonSense yes, the ubiquiti values in the manual are like lawnmower horsepower ratings. At anyrate i wasn't disputing the ER-X values but the ER-4 that u listed at ~200. Something else that I cannot explain at all. I don't use either of the edgerouters the er-x is collecting dust, the er-4 I bought as a backup router. I actually use a USG-Pro-4. According to specs page it has Half the processor of the er-4. Dual-Core 1 GHz, MIPS64. But I cannot explain why but some secret sauce I have nearly no buffer bloat with full speed downloads in the 900mbs range (A-Rating). I don't have ANY QoS active. I am at a complete loss to explain how it does it but there is some secret sauce for bufferbloat in the USG PRO 4 (it does have more Ram than any of the aforementioned edgerouters, 2GB ddr3). The Normal USG is worse than the ER-X I have one of those too. You might call me a bit of a router junkie.

[@tweederflens66]

Have you ever checked Sophos XG home Edition ?

[@Gump23]

Does this work on consoles as well? What would be a good upgraded router from the netduma R1?

[@MegaNebelwerfer]

I just got a TP link router with traffic shaping and assigned an address range to a slower speed. Easy

[@alexpop3883]

Fantastic. You have got a good solution.

[@BattleNonSense]

_"and assigned an address range to a slower speed."_ that's what I tried to avoid. my goal was to only throttle the bandwidth of specific services (not the entire clients!) when required.

[@aperfidiousdane]

"Stealth fighter design of the router" hahaaaaaa.

[@CataclysmZA]

More noise than actual signal.

[@WrexBF]

I live alone therefore, I don't have bufferbloat problems.

[@DerJoshbert]

Awesome stuff!

[@TheNerd]

If i use a Fritz.Box + EdgeRouter, i should still get bloat problems even in exposed host mode right? since im routing from fritzbox to edgerouter

[@BattleNonSense]

as long as all traffic goes through the ERX (so no other device connected to the Fritz.Box, no device using the WiFi of the Fritz.Box) you won't get Bufferbloat after you enable SmartQueue on the ERX. Problem start to occur as soon as you have devices go around the ERX (connect to the device ahead of the ERX)

[@airaneon]

You should do a MORDHAU netcode analysis. A lot of time player experience their weapons just phasing through the enemy.

[@nitrogaming708]

what about mikrotik i already have one and i got lower ping but i get packet loss and i still looking for which rules i missed up

[@broodrooster_bas]

You misspelled best as pest in the description. Grest video tho!

[@BattleNonSense]

XD

[@knechtnoobrecht-c137]

So when our bandwidth would be enough to download and playing games simultaneously but the ping is very high, do i need a more capable router or something like this ?

[@johnvasileff4533]

Great video. I have an edgerouter, and as you say, it’s underpowered for traffic shaping. Any idea if you can use VLANs with Untangle for the lan and wan interfaces? I’d like to give it a try on an unused Mac mini with only one Ethernet port.

[@johnvasileff4533]

Update: I tried, and it works great! I created VLAN 2 on my switch for the cable modem and added a WAN interface eth0.2 in the Untangle interfaces configuration screen, and that’s about it.

[@K7L3-93]

I am not sure if it is possible to use a DIY router setup like when my ISP supplied a modem/router combo and that uses ADSL not a WAN port. :-( I'll have to see if they can sort me out with a standalone modem.

[@BattleNonSense]

You have 3 options: 1. ask your ISP if they can switch their device to modem/bridge mode 2. if (1) isnt possible, ask if you can use your own ADSL modem (they have to provide PPPoE login details and config settings) 3. if neither 1 nor 2 are possible (or if you don't want to go with option 2) check if your ADSL modem/router has a "DMZ" option. You can define your own router as DMZ host and your DSL modem/router will forward all ports to your router than.

[@T3hRipPeRr]

would it still work if i had 2 firewalls the main PfSense functionalities and the Untangle for the QOS features with PfSense being the exit firewall to the internet? Thanks.

[@BattleNonSense]

You have a double-nat setup then which is not idea, and you'd have to place the Untangle box into the DMZ of the PfSense box. Also all traffic must go through the Untangle box then for QoS to work. Question is why you would want such a setup?

[@T3hRipPeRr]

@@BattleNonSense i know about it but never tinkered with PfSense but the free packages/plugins looked interesting to use, and considering your QoS video on PfSense i thought it was a good idea to combine the best of both worlds. i'm not a network engineer though so sorry if my question sounded odd. also thanks on the fast reply, your videos are just amazing wish you good luck.

[@Targetlockon]

What to do if I want WiFi with the router with this setup you have shown?

[@BattleNonSense]

I could use the antenna of the Zotac to have Untangle create a WiFi, but that would be very bad WiFi because of the single antenna. I prefer and recommend that you use Access Points to build your WiFi - like the Unifi AP-AC-LR from UBNT.

[@ZZstaff]

My bufferbloat is horrible, it gets an F. I need to figure out what modem is best, not sure if my ISP will help.

[@GeneralSmolderas]

I can't fix my bufferbloat since my router has bad QoS settings and idk if my isp could help, my router is too weak for OpenWRT. If i could only change the router and modem that would be great but i dont think my isp allows that 😦

[@keis2046]

I'm wondering, did you try ipfire before going to setup an untangle utm?

[@GonzoTwn]

I thought the Er4 is good for 400mb with smart que according to alot of the reviews. Or does the 400 mean only 200up and 200 down?

[@BattleNonSense]

The best I could get out of an ER4 with active SQ was 280Mbps, the worst I got on a customers site was 210Mbps. So what you get depends on your setup, which is why I rather tell you that you can expect 200Mbps instead of claim that you can get 300mbps just for you to find out that you only get 210Mbps (like one of my customers). :)

[@DashiPSN]

;P A1 oder magenta :D richtig nice erklart

[@sorena2952]

meanwhile im watching this video on a 3mbps ADSL.

[@T3hRipPeRr]

i know how you feel i was there man from 56kb to 256 DSL -512- 4mbs-10mbs then downgraded by bad ISP infrastructure to 8mbs and finally only recently only freakin recently got a 50mbs Fiber connection no more jumping pings and weak connection droppings.

[@adelkhalifa1104]

2mbps is here :"|

[@nex4613]

@@T3hRipPeRr stop crying. Been on fkn 16k DSL my entire life. Finally got Fibre connection installed, gotta wait till end of the year to have everything ready for 500k.. Wonder how it is, actually having decent internet that doesn't occasionally buffer 720p60fps twitch and simply refuses to run 1080p60fps streams (videos are fine surprisingly)..

[@DerpyNoodIe]

What do you think is better? Untagled or Pfsense?

[@marciets1752]

I've used both and for gaming I prefer the payed home option for 50 dollar a year from Untangle. Never had any problems with gaming. With pfsense I was most of the time frustrated when gaming met multiple consoles and PC's at the same time. This Is just my opinion of course 😁

[@TheBrassn]

I'd like to replace my FritzBox with a more advanced device like those from Ubiquiti. However my current FritzBox acts as a modem (VDSL) and I don't feel like replacing just one FritzBox with a separate router and modem (plus wifi accesspoint...) or using it in combination due to concerns about double NAT. Isn't there a alternative router with a integrated modem that can compete with those from Ubiquiti?

[@davespeed7210]

Use a PC for untangle that has a PCIe Slot, here is the modem you can plug in and continue to have only one box : www.draytek.de/vigornic-132-serie.html

[@BattleNonSense]

DoubleNAT isn't much of an issue *IF* you run your new router as "Exposed host" (thats what they call DMZ). I have to run my router as DMZ host as my ISP does not offer the option to switch their Fibre modem/router to bridge/modem mode. No problems with that setup - had to run the ERLite-3 and the ERX like that for years before.

[@holden7782]

Hey Chris, awesome video, once again. big fan of your content. just curious, have you heard of DumaOS.com? they claim to fix bufferbloat aswell with their operating system

[@ryanr2303]

I use the XR500, This router uses DumaOS and i have to say this router does fix bufferbloat. Great Router but it does takes some setting up

[@iufiglis]

Hello Chris, I have a Gigabite Brix i5 running Debian 24/7. If i Install Untangle on a VirtualBox machine and pass two USB ethernet adapters directly to the VM, could the delay of the USB controller and performance of the VM (PAE/NX) compromise the performance of the entire setup instead of running Untangle directly as host system? I have some familiarity with ClearOS and OpenWRT and didn't make the right research but it may be a good alternative to Untangle having its features for free home use.

[@BattleNonSense]

I'd stay far away from USB NIC's as they are extremely unreliable. I can't comment on the performance when you run it inside a VM.

[@HellDuke-]

Hm, not sure if I need this though... Not at the moment since I don't have kids that would play games yet and my wife does not play games all that much... On the other hand I do have a gigabit connection so if I were going to do this solution I would probably need something beefier than that Zotac... I think that my current RT-AC68U should be able to handle the traffic just fine.

[@baohoaily]

So assuming I am not worried about power usage... an i7-4770 will be sufficient for this on a Fibre 1000 down, 750 up connection?

[@BattleNonSense]

First you should run the speedtest on www.dslreports.com/speedtest to check if you even suffer from bufferbloat. I in Sweden there is at least 1 ISP which does A/SQM on their end, and so you don’t have to do it at home (A+ bufferbloat on your line). If you have bufferbloat, then I sadly can’t tell you what kind of CPU you need for 1Gbps as I don’t have access to such a connection to run tests, and I can’t find hardware recommendations for such speeds. ☹ I *heared* that OpenWRT with CAKE on an APU2 from PC Engines can do 1Gbps, but I have no way to verify this.

[@baohoaily]

@@BattleNonSense Hi Chris, I'll reply here instead of email... thanks for your advice. I'll give it a shot. I do recall doing a lot of those tests when I first got the service. My house itself doesn't have a lot of users. I was getting A+ scores very frequently. Still wasn't sure if it was good enough, and assumed because 1 gig down, 750mb up was just brute forcing over any issues. I'll shut off all of the QOS/Anti buffer stuff on the XR500 (Net Duma OS, your favourite). and run more dsl reports test tonight. I am pretty sure it's a safe assumption that Bell doesn't do A/SQM unless it's free for them.

[@kirk1240]

I have an intel nuc with a i7-8705G, its like 5% load with 1gbit downloading. You will have no worries.