Or: goodbye Turris

Given that online learning was coming up, I finally tackled something I'd been putting off — a factory reset of my Turris router. Why? Well, after one update I couldn't manage the router through the UI. I kept seeing Bad gateway. After reboots, endless updates and tweaking a million parameters I was happy. I should add that this time I didn't install the honeypot and data sharing. Imagine my surprise the next morning when I got an email from the Shodan service saying there was an open port 3128 on my public IP address. I checked the Turris and HaaS project websites and it was clear. Even though I hadn't ticked the data sharing option, it was sending data. The honeypots being installed didn't bother me that much — but something transmitting even when it's not explicitly permitted was quite a disappointment. And that was the final straw that led me to look for a replacement.

Ideally I wanted a single box that would give me confidence in updates, support, dual-band WiFi, advanced security features, VPN and other useful functions. After a bit of research I found Ubiquiti's Dream Machine.

It's not a box but a cylinder. A proper one — the initial Bluetooth setup is smooth and elegant. The rest can be fine-tuned via the web interface, which has endless options: VLANs, guest network, IDS/IPS and other useful things. It's too early for a detailed review, but so far I'm very happy.