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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
The US claims foreign-made routers pose national security risks.
In December, the Federal Communications Commission banned all future drones made in foreign countries from being imported into the United States, unless or until their maker gets an exemption. Now, the FCC has done the exact same for consumer networking gear, citing “an unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States and to the safety and security of U.S. persons.”
If you already have a Wi-Fi or wired router, you can keep on using it — and companies that have already gotten FCC radio authorization for a specific foreign-made product can continue to import that product.
But since the vast majority — if not all — consumer routers are manufactured outside the United States, the vast majority of future consumer routers are now banned. By adding all foreign-made consumer routers to its Covered List, the FCC is saying it will no longer authorize their radios, which de facto bans new devices from import into the country.
If you want a dedicated device, sure. Image it with OPNSense and it’ll basically just work.
You can also take any desktop you already have, fire up an OPNSense VM, pcie passthrough your WAN NIC + WiFi card, bridge to a separate LAN NIC, go through the setup, and there’s your router.
Alright, well I appreciate the direction there, that’s really helpful.
Although, I gotta be honest, for someone who doesn’t regularly use Linux, that does sound like a lot of potential issues getting this working.
That’s fair. Once you understand some basics though it’s not too bad. There’s a UI just like any router you might already be used to. The most confusing part for someone who is new to this would probably be setting up the VM hardware plumbing, and understanding that a passthrough means that hardware is unavailable to the host.