Home Consumer Wireless router that supports Site-to-Site OpenVPN?

I'm looking for a home wireless router product that supports site-to-site OpenVPN connections (to pfSense) that I can get and install for certain family members of mine to help me manage their networks remotely and cut down on the amount of times I need to be on premise to help them. I'd also like the CPU to be able to support at least a 20Mbps OpenVPN connection for media streaming.

I could obviously take a consumer router and throw DD-WRT on it but would prefer something that works out of the box if possible as my time is limited.

Suggestions?

 

A Zbox CI323 with PFsense can be done for about $200 with SSD and RAM. I have one at my fathers house to run OpenVPN for the same reasons you have and it has no trouble utilizing my 20Mb upload.

 

How's the wireless on that thing?

 

I did forget about the wireless. PFsense doesn't have great support for wireless and the card included doesn't work. I did read about a dell card working with it that can be had for $5 or so off ebay but I'm not sure what the model number is.

 

pfSense sg-1000 for $150

Netgate SG-1000 microFirewall

Routerboard HAP AC lite $42

MikroTik&nbspRB952Ui-5ac2nD-US - 2.4/5GHz hAP ac lite 802.11ac 2x2 US

pfSense for the site to site VPN and hap AC lite for the wifi. If you need more coverage you can order more than one wap and set one up as a capsman controller for central management.

I don't recommend anything but a pfSense client for site-to-site VPN with pfSense as the server. It can be a mess to set up and maintain with multiple OS's. The SG-1000 was designed specifically for your use case.

 

I know you wanted to avoid flashing, but I deploy Netgear R7000, then flash Shibby Tomato on them. This connects to pfSense OpenVPN without any issues for me. The QoS in Tomato is extremely effective, easy to configure and great for small networks.

When they outgrow the single router/AP, I usually then drop Ubiquiti APs and backhaul the AP management across the VPN link.

 

Asus' RT-AC87U supports openvpn connections. I'v used one of their DSL routers previously. Price is decent for the amount of power it packs.

Easy managed and loads of features.

 

I saw that post yesterday @Patrick I'll be anticipating your review.

Any idea what kind of VPN throughput the CPU in that thing is capable of handling? I remember testing the Netgear Nighthawk R7000 with OpenVPN and I could only manage about 3MB/s (24Mbps) throughput over the VPN connection. The CPU seemed to be the limiting factor.

 

Havent testes throughput myself, but seems resonable according to Asus RT-AC87U OpenVPN speeds

- How much throughput do you need?

 

Right now I need 20Mbps but I'd like a little headroom for the future.

 

From what I could read, 40Mbps shouldnt be an issue

 

@Patrick Did you ever get your hands on this?

EDIT: I just found the review. Wondering if you know if you can use this router as the client for a site-to-site OpenVPN connection? Their site lists the following: Site-to-Site VPN (Beta). Would you be able to test this feature @Patrick and see what kind of throughput it's capable of handlying?

 

What about ubiquiti offerings? The USG as well as ER-lite support site to site VPN.

 

I need built in wireless.

 

Sorry missed that you were looking for a wireless router. My folks needed a multi AP solution to handle coverage issues and I had setup a USG+UBNT APs+Cloudkey system for them sometime back. Checked out the site to site VPN at that time and it was easy to setup. I haven't been using it though.

They do connect to my plex server but directly via plex remote access.

 

PC Engines APU2 - ~$120
wireless card(s) - <$20
flash - $5
case (optional) - $10

Firmware options:
- OpenWRT
- Sophos
- Zentyal
- ClearOS
- DD-WRT (if you must)

Expensive? Not really. Plus, it sounds like you're already providing them with free technical and media services, so, explain to them that the cost is theirs to bear and is the cost of admission.