Router or openwrt?

[Marinoz]

So i have a mini pc and i am using it for firewalling. I have proxmox ve and run opnsense and i was thinking to add a wlan device. So shall i buy a wifi 6 router or use my mini pcs whole power and add a wifi 6 card? I also will have to buy a voip device which costs but lets forget about cost. Whats more efficient secure and customizable?

[dmark]

Running a WIFI Accesspoint on PC hardware sounds not very energy-efficient for me.
I would buy one or more (depending on the size of the location) real accesspoints (not routers), eg. Ubiquiti and a PoE-and VLAN-capable switch. If you already have a proxmox host you could easily run an Unifi controller.

[Marinoz]

Ubiquiti aps cost a lot and dont come with voip capabilities

[Seimus]

If you want to go the route of OpenSource, get a WiFi 6 router that can run OpenWRT. You can set the OpenWRT as Dumm AP.

I am using it like this and having as well L2 VLANs with Dedicated SSIDs on the OpenWRT.

Regards,
S.

[cookiemonster]

There is also a post somewhere here with a user sharing how to setup a bhyve VM _in_ OPN for OpenWRT for this purpose.
So you can do that or the VM in Proxmox alongside OPN.

You could try with an inexpensive Wifi card, but check beforehand online searches if it can be put in AP mode.

[bimbar]

Ubiquiti aps cost a lot and dont come with voip capabilities

Actually they're fairly cheap, at least if you think in business terms.

You might want to look into mikrotik, there are very cheap devices available.

[Marinoz]

If you want to go the route of OpenSource, get a WiFi 6 router that can run OpenWRT. You can set the OpenWRT as Dumm AP.

I am using it like this and having as well L2 VLANs with Dedicated SSIDs on the OpenWRT.

Regards,
S.

Why not just buy a wifi card fou my mini pc and run it there ?

[Marinoz]

Ubiquiti aps cost a lot and dont come with voip capabilities

Actually they're fairly cheap, at least if you think in business terms.

You might want to look into mikrotik, there are very cheap devices available.

Even if fisrly cheap they dont ussualy come with voip

[Marinoz]

There is also a post somewhere here with a user sharing how to setup a bhyve VM _in_ OPN for OpenWRT for this purpose.
So you can do that or the VM in Proxmox alongside OPN.

You could try with an inexpensive Wifi card, but check beforehand online searches if it can be put in AP mode.

I anyway run proxmox so running a vm inside a vm is not needed. But wieic6 cards at least cost 40 euros and a voip adapter 50. I am pretty sure i can find a decent to good router with this money. But if running openwrt is your recommendation i take it thank you

[cookiemonster]

For voip adapter I assume you mean a device to connect your PSTN phone into a switch port like the grandstreams (I have one as it happens, an 801). If so, I imagine is possible that as soon as you put a "normal" router in AP mode, it won't have the voip functionality enabled. If that functionality is kept, then that might be a better solution but in general those devices expect to be plugged into a switch.
You might want to expand on what you mean by "voip capabilities"

[Seimus]

Why not just buy a wifi card fou my mini pc and run it there ?

Because a FW is not an Access point same as its not a Switch. If you are going to put a FW into your network you should not have it as well as an AP.

You should want these two devices, doing two different things, to be separate either virtually or physically.

Also same as cookie asked, what do you mean by "voip capabilities"?

Regards,
S.

[Marinoz]

For voip adapter I assume you mean a device to connect your PSTN phone into a switch port like the grandstreams (I have one as it happens, an 801). If so, I imagine is possible that as soon as you put a "normal" router in AP mode, it won't have the voip functionality enabled. If that functionality is kept, then that might be a better solution but in general those devices expect to be plugged into a switch.
You might want to expand on what you mean by "voip capabilities"

Im sorry the mistake is at my question. I dont want ap specifically but i want to give opmsense wireless capabilities similar to ap but having voip too. So having wlan, lan if i use a router with extra ethernet ports and voip.

[Patrick M. Hausen]

But OPNsense does not do VoIP.

[Greg_E]

Voip device like a phone or Voip server like FreePBX? A phone shouldn't be a big deal, a server will need much more but you can run some of them on a raspberry pi.

[Marinoz]

You know, an outer device, a rj45 to rj11 converter a voip gateway in other words. I will have to buy this one tlo if i get the wifi card and the cost rises. So router or run openwrt