DIY router with BSD based OS question

[TMR]

I am currently thinking of making my own router out of some old harddware. With this idea in mind I have been reading up on different OS alterantives to use. I have been considering everything fram ubuntu server, pure FreeBSD and sollutions that are more user friendly with a web-based gui.

I came across this article.

Best free Linux Router and firewall software 2023 (4 recommendations)

Best Free Linux and BSD router and firewall distribution 2023. Best Open Source software for router appliance.

teklager.se

And I was wondering if someone here could explain to me what they mean under disadvanges on OPNSense. I find i it difficult to belive that BSD would have these limits.
I am not surprised about the poor wifi,
but limitations on maximum throughput per connection, and single connections will not utilize multi-core CPU. surprises me more.

 

[KGIII]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I believe that's by design and has to do with the way that BSD schedules tasks. If the throughput wasn't limited, it'd be possible for that thread to overwhelm the system and degrade the systems performance overall. In BSD world, that's not allowed - due to an emphasis on rock-solid stability.

Note that this is per connection. That's one IP address sending one bit of data, like the HTTP requests. Other connections would have their own thread. Those many threads can be across multiple cores but no individual thread can be across multiple cores.

So, unless you're hammering down on one IP address with the full weight of your connection, and that connection is big enough to fill your pipes, it's not going to be something you actually notice.

I think... I'm pretty sure, but not 100% positive.

It may sound counterintuitive, but throttling connections is Server Management 101 type of stuff. It keeps the server from being overwhelmed as easily, making it harder to do things like cause the server to lag by sending lots of packets at it at once (such as causing a denial of service attack). It's mostly about *inbound* traffic and not so much about outbound, though that's really oversimplifying.

 

[TMR]

Thank you for the reply, I think im a bit wiser now. To give a practical example, a high load ssh file transfer is where I just might notice something, and only if it overwhelms the single core that is beeing loaded.
And for normal internet load from the family is not very likely going make the connection feel slow.

 

[KGIII]

You got it.