*CHEAP* routers/firewalls/Wifi Access points
Lee turned me on to this: Instead of going out and purchasing an expensive router/firewall/Wifi Access Point; download m0n0wall or pfsense and make it yourself with embedded hardware.
There are 2 main choices for hardware, the Soekris net4xxx boards or the pcEngines WRAP boards.
SiliconeKit sells the PC Engines products ($221 will give you a 3-port, power-over-ethernet-enabled, waterproofed enclosure)
Soekris sell their own products. ($282 will give you a comparable device with a few more interfaces but w/o the waterproofed enclosure)
a review of PC Engines and Soekris products: here.
a review of m0n0wall: here.
Pfsense is a fork of m0n0wall. Pfsense’s goal was to use a more recent FreeBSD kernel and include additional functionality, but it requires a compact Flash card up to 256mb in size.
m0n0wall takes up less than 8 MB on a Compact Flash card.
pfsense takes up to 256 MB but can be slimmed down.
The following specs are from the m0n0wall handbook, but, for the most part, applies to pfsense as well:
On a soekris net4501, m0n0wall provides a WAN <-> LAN TCP throughput of about 17 Mbps, including NAT, when run with the default configuration.
With soekris net4801 or pcEngines’ WRAP, throughput in excess of 50 Mbps is possible.
On a net4501, m0n0wall boots to a fully working state in less than 40 seconds after power-up, including POST (with a properly configured BIOS).
if you plan on utilizing a DMZ segment or second LAN segment. A soekris 48xx (or WRAP, I believe) maxes out at around 40 Mbps.
The Soekris 48xx and pcEngines WRAP platform is sufficient for most Internet connections less than 30 Mbps