Stop! Don’t buy that cheap router! So-called “plug ‘n play” routers are the cause of more home network problems and security holes than anything else. Why would you pay $50 or more for a migraine in a square box? I’ll show you how to build your own router from scratch that is far more powerful, far more secure, and far cheaper than that store bought hunk of junk you’re looking at in another browser tab right now. Yeah, that’s right, close that out right now, and relax. This isn’t going to be nearly as painful as you think.
The first thing we need to do is take a quick crash course in what a router does. Most people want to treat a router like a phone jack splitter, but if you do this you’re going to run into a lot of problems without having the faintest clue why. The truth is a router does far more than just split up your DSL or cable connection to several computers. It also has to assign unique addresses to each computer on your network, determine which computers are actually on and active on the network, and act as a postmaster delivering data to and from the right computers. If you have wireless it maintains and (hopefully) encrypts the connection, and in some instances your router also initiates the connection to your internet provider.
Any cheap router off the shelf will do all these things. Some will do these things better than others, and toss in a few neat features, but at a higher price. I’m going to show you how to build a firewall with features and functionality that would cost you several hundred dollars, for just the price of a very low performance computer, a cd-rom, and a couple network cards. I was fortunate enough to have an old Pentium 2 given to me, and to have a couple network cards laying around, so I was able to purchase a wireless card and have a working wireless router and firewall within an hour for $40.
