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With hardware/driver support limiting what you can do with wifi on opnsense, and concerns you have about wireless access point security, physically separate devices would seem the best choice for you. That or no wireless network.

thanks for the response - my plan is to use my old openwrt one box as an access point only!

in all honesty - is there anyone around who has used something like this method before that would be willing to walk me through it?

Not only i use it every day for the last 12 years, i implemented such solutions to a lot of people. And they use it for many years not even thinking about it.

is it complicated for a networking newbie?

Its not complicated. Once you figure out how to configure interfaces in opnsense, you are pretty much set. How are you going to configure your access point depends on what that device actually is.

I have already set up opensense box on a mini pc (and gone through some of the settings / watched many tutorials / learned a lot about networks)

In this case, the most complicated part for a newbie would be configuring additional port on opnsense to work on a different subnet. Once you do that, you just attach access point to that port, and you are done.

I have just never worked through using a wireless access point (I feel so old fashioned, lol)

Its because there are endless ways on how you can do this. Not all of them are correct though. Especially if security and performance are your priority. Just because some solution works doesnt mean its implemented correctly.

Much of it is new to me also but in my unqualified opinion an opnsense router coupled with openwrt access point(s) is an appealing combo for a home user. You are able to re-purpose your existing gear or buy cost effective secondhand and there is ample documentation on both. I have a couple of meraki units, running openwrt in 'dumb AP mode', connected via a small managed switch.

Repurposing your old gear is nice if your gear comes from reputable manufacturer that does things correctly,. OpenWRT is great. I love it. However, running OpenWRT on TP-Link is not the same as running it on Cisco Meraki. TP-Link has critical flaws in its hardware and how it handles its port during device booting. Cisco Meraki has no such issues. And lets not even go into build quality and internal hardware choices.

You can in theory connect the APs directly to the opnsense box, but this can lead to interface issues on the router side. Check out the openwrt guides for access point only mode. Then consult the docs here for opnsense vlans.

You just need to make sure that your wireless device is working in AP mode. Avoid running wireless devices in router mode because then you have NAT and additional DHCP server which are not needed in this case.

all right - ive been trying to get my openwrt one box (bigblue) working in a dumb AP configuration (disabling DCHP) and attempting to set it to access point only mode

but problem 1 - opnsense box (blackbox) is not giving the internet to blue
problem 2 - when I disable dhcp (ignore the interface on blue) the ability to connect to blue (through ethernet or through wireless)  does not work at all


for clarity
black is connected through ethernet to ISP modem - then blue is connected to black through ethernet as well

(i'm pretty sure im getting the ports correct cause I set them manually)

does anyone have any other ideas? or recommendations?

how do I configure the settings in order for the mini pc to "send the internet"  to the openwrt one, so that the openwrt one can be my wifi access point?

Just connect it to your network and create the SSID and you are DONE! :)

However if you have VLANs on your OPNsense then the whole story gets totally different and you need to do some reading before getting everything up and running...


because I want to have ore security in my network than just an all in one ....


But if I may ask :

What was the reason you have chosen to use OPNsense if you are having issues with this kind of stuff ?!

Why not simply buy a nice "All-in-One" Router or something targeted more at regular home users so to speak ??

thankies!

so ive been talking too with my buddy about this

we've come up with the solution of

ISP modem -- connecting to mini PC running opensense

then repurposing my old "openwrt one" (openwrt one is a box that openwrt designed to run openwrt / supports their funds)
to run that as the wifi piece (since I already have this box)

I may switch the openwrt one to a netgear: https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-Wireless-Access-Point-WAX210PA/dp/B0DLDMHCWC


how do I configure the settings in order for the mini pc to "send the internet"  to the openwrt one, so that the openwrt one can be my wifi access point?

how can I mark this as solved?

not to say I know much - but isn't llm generated code extremely unsecure as well? Wouldn't that ruin the whole point of trying to use a firewall?

in all honesty - is there anyone around who has used something like this method before that would be willing to walk me through it?

is it complicated for a networking newbie?

I have already set up opensense box on a mini pc (and gone through some of the settings / watched many tutorials / learned a lot about networks)

I have already done some work with openwrt as well and my router is already in bridge mode
I have just never worked through using a wireless access point (I feel so old fashioned, lol)

I thought that wireless access points were by default a bit unsecure

You thought wrong. Access points from Ubiquiti or Grandstream have WPA3 and WPA3 Enterprise support. They also support per SSID VLAN segmentation and they can work with RADIUS authentication servers. And lets not even get into performance metrics and reliability.

There are several things you should never do with your opnsense box.

Use it as a soft switch.
Use it as an wifi access point.
Use USB devices on it.

- do you have a reccommendation for one less than $100?

Grandstream GWN7604. Keep in mind that some of these devices are not shipped with power supply so you will need PoE injector or PoE switch.

thank you very much for the recommendation!
I will shop around

You could find a used wifi router that has current OpenWRT support and just use it as a access point. 

well, the reason I am switching to opensense, is that openwrt has been filled with llm coding -- I could never get it to work properly anyway -_-

is there a guide for this I could look into? I still have my openwrt one box

I thought that wireless access points were by default a bit unsecure - do you have a reccommendation for one less than $100?

I believe what I am trying to do is set up a wireless network (wifi?)

using a mini pc as an opnsense box
what im struggling to understand - is if I want to create a network ssid -- and use WPA2 encryption...

- I have 4 ethernet ports
- I want to connect my mini pc to my isp modem (as the gateway to internet)

- then I want my devices to connect to the opensense box - to have traffic go through the firewall and unbound  using quad nine

https://docs.opnsense.org/manual/how-tos/interface_wireless_internal.html

do I need to install the addon Radius - in order to set up a network? (ssid: password for people to log in with)
do I need to do anything special in order for my mini pc to be used as a wifi router / connect things to it

thank you!

I think there may be an error in the guide / or at least some unclearness

- needing to nano in a new file .pub -- for the public key
- as well as a bit of unclearness about whether you uncompress before or after checking the checksum 256

I think if you compress after it provides an incorrect checksum
but if you checksum the compressed file it provides the correct checksum256

hi! I'm brand new to this and I was wondering if I could get some help with this part of the instructions on installation --

im trying to verify my iso before installing - but I can't get this part of the instructions to work:


https://docs.opnsense.org/manual/install.html#download-and-verification
If the checksums match, continue with the verification commands.

openssl base64 -d -in OPNsense-<filename>.<image>.sig -out /tmp/image.sig
openssl dgst -sha256 -verify OPNsense-<filename>.pub -signature /tmp/image.sig OPNsense-<filename>.<image>


I have changed the file name to actual file name -- but the command says:
cannot verify two files at once


I verified pub key and checksum 256 -- but this part of the commands won't work for me
any tips? i'm very new!
any help greatly appreciated